


sunshine for scars, music for misery

by vapemywave (hausofgreene)



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Original Character(s), Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, ain't no sex without consent babey, kinda????, listen y'all this touches on some bad times but I promise it's mostly uphill from here, someone hug shane I'm begging you, that good good farm life aesthetic, y'all the whole gang is here don't worry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-11-10 15:41:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hausofgreene/pseuds/vapemywave
Summary: You’ve all heard the retellings of the lone city-dwelling escapee who takes over an abandoned farm, renovates everything, changes lives, finds love, and fucks up things along the way.Let’s change it up a bit.I give you three broken, battered, fresh out of surgery and rehab young adults looking to run away from their pasts. I give you all the work they have to do to turn a profit on the once-thriving landscape, all the trust issues, bad coping mechanisms, and a whole lot of bisexual disasters. Maybe we’ll see them succeed, maybe not.Welcome to the Hickory Homestead, misfits – your new life starts here.





	1. there’s no plan, there’s no kingdom to come

**Author's Note:**

> aye what's up babes welcome to my new side project. updates will be random and unplanned like all good pregnancies, I'm a working adult who's prone to forgetting things exist so bare with me. these are OC's I've used in RPs and other creative outlets for a while, so prepare for me mixing in trauma and inside jokes with no context. 
> 
> I do promise however to put warning in the front of each chapter for anything heavy that could be triggering or otherwise not readable for some so you know you can skip it if you need to.
> 
> I've also taken some creative liberties with the story, some parts of the setting, and other little bits that you'll see as you go. it's my story and if I want the house to have a bedroom and bathroom right away I will.

The scenic drive into the tiny coastal town would have been pleasant if it wasn’t for the lack of radio signals in their ancient pickup truck. Maybe with music, they could have coped with a two-hour drive out of Zuzu City, but with one of them still having withdrawals and another reeling from post-surgery medication, the trio was somber and restless.

“I’m about to start praying we get there faster.” Wilder moaned, forehead pressed against the glass of the window, watching the fog of his breath ebb and flow, counting the minutes until they arrived by swirling his thumb against the back of his hand.

From the driver’s seat, Knox laughed in the back of his chest, quiet and deep, but it was the young woman between them who replied. “You only pray when you’re sick, Wild. Be patient.” The dark-eyed man at the window turned just enough to look at the both of them, ground himself in the familiarity of their silhouettes in the early afternoon light, trace the lines of the gauze and tape stuck to Lily’s chest. She noticed his stare, turned to face him and stick her tongue out at him, dodging when he reached out to grab it. “Quit it, get your fingers away from me, nasty.”

It continued as it always had between them, quiet banter between the two not driving, bothering Knox into their knock-knock jokes. The further away from the city they got, the more they could breathe, and the more car sick Wilder felt. Perks of the post-rehab stomach he figured, not listening when Lily told him to rub his tongue around the roof of his mouth, still grouchy about the unauthorized removal of his tongue stud.

The road turned to gravel when they turned onto it, following the faded signs proclaiming the entrance to town, and finding a blue pickup truck parked just off the turn. Lily recognized the mayor immediately, a strange feeling of melancholy flooding her, making her chest ache more than normal.

“Well,” she cleared her throat as Knox pulled over and killed the ignition. “are you boys ready for this?” Knox grabbed her hand that she’d begun to twist in the fabric of her jeans.

“Always.”

The trio was a little more…battered, than Mayor Lewis was expecting. Even Robin was taken aback by the medical bandages and dark circles, and certainly the scar that took up almost half of Knox’s thin face. Still, they didn’t have much time to take them in before Lily was walking over, leaving the imposingly tall man to help their friend out of the truck.

“Lillian, so good to see you again, good Yoba how you’ve grown!” Lewis threw his arms open in greeting, letting her quickly shuffle into a hug. “How old are you now? It feels like the last time I saw you, I was afraid of stepping on you, you were so little.” Something like a familiar tense smile passed over her face when she drew back, unnoticed by anyone other than Knox at her side.

“I think that’s a jab at my height, Mister Mayor, I saw you less than ten years ago.” Lewis had to laugh, turned to look at the rest of the trio as he directed his hand towards Robin on the sidelines. “You remember Robin, the carpenter from up the mountain?” It was hard to forget the red of her hair or the ever-present smell of pine that always surrounded the woman, as distantly familiar as the odd summers she’d spent at the place her mother called Hickory Homestead.

Introductions were passed around like the basket at church, Robin holding onto Lily just a bit too long, gently enough that she didn’t put pressure on her soft and deceptively frail frame. Eventually, they piled back into their trucks and followed the barely-graveled path towards familiar undergrowth. Knox rolled the window down, flooding the cab with a cool breeze and the smell of new leaves, the springtime none of them had ever experienced suddenly overwhelmed them. Wilder reached over for Lily’s hand, looking out of his closed window in the same way a child would look at the glass of an aquarium; wonder, uncertainty, transfixed by waves of green and brown that rolled by the window like waves. If he shifted his fingers, he could feel her distant pulse, fleeting and unsteady under her skin.

“You’ve inherited a mess, Lil.” They’d been out of the truck for less than a minute before Wilder voiced his opinion on the state of her grandfather’s farm. “Gods be damned if I’m going to deal with all these weeds, and that’s not even starting on the state of the house.” Lily wasn’t listening, had instead followed Robin up to the porch, hearing the tales of what would need to be done to make it up to standards again. It left Wilder to huff and kick rocks towards her. “What did she get us into.”

Beside him Knox hummed, absently reached out to tuck a stray lock of black hair behind Wilder’s ear, not having to take his gaze away from the farm to do so. “Gave us a chance to leave, a house without rent, a start over.” More huffing came out of the shorter man, now kicking rocks towards Knox. “A place with fresh air, which was recommended for _both_ of you.” Blue eyes met black ones, and the mayor cleared his throat.

“I don’t want to put my nose into places they don’t belong,” Both men turned slightly, a smile tugging at their lips. “but can I ask if…uh-“

The laugh that Wilder let out was sharp, harsh like the cry of a crow in the trees, and made Lewis startle. “Whatever you’re about to ask it’s probably no, especially if that question is if we’ve formed some sort of polyamorous trio of degenerates fresh out of the wrong side of hell.”

From his pocket Wilder fished out a half-empty pack of cigarettes, black labeled and rolled in matching paper, stepping away from the group to have the first smoke of the day. Shaking his head Knox gave the mayor a once over, and the older man couldn’t deny that the impressive scar going from his hairline to his cheek on the left side didn’t make him seem imposing. “You’ll have to ignore him, but Wilder is right; things were rough in Zuzu City, and Lily gave us an out.” Shoving his hands in his front pockets, Knox went back to looking over the farm, taking in everything they’d need to do. “We’ve been best friends since high school, went to the same college, ended up at the same terrible desk jobs. I don’t think we’d go anywhere without each other at this point.”

Inside, the nostalgia overwhelmed Lily like the choking dust in the air. Not much was left behind in the little house, it was the same three rooms she could remember from the last time she was here to pick up her ailing grandfather and take him to hospice. The wood floors were covered in a fine layer of pollen and years of dust, the oak table was propped up against the far wall beside the tiny kitchenette from decades earlier, it’s chairs stacked neatly next to it. Walking into the doorway of the bedroom found a bed frame, but no mattress and half of it was dismantled by time and neglect.

Behind her Robin came up on practiced-quiet steps, boots muffled against the hardwood. “I’ve got some of the furniture stored away in my workshop, he’d asked me to restore the older pieces before he passed.” Noticing the hitch in the younger woman’s chest, Robin put a comforting hand on the middle of her back, remembering the little girl that used to come around every summer, now all grown up. “They’re yours, of course, I could never sell them.” Lily nodded, wiping at her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan. “Are you doing alright? Your father mentioned the surgery in his last letter, did everything go to plan?”

That made her laugh softly, sniffling a bit and looking up at Robin with red-rimmed green eyes. “Yeah, about as good as open-heart surgery can go, sure.” One hand drifted, touched the bandage on her chest with small fingers. “They say it gave me a chance to avoid dying anytime soon, or sooner than my thirties at least. I’ll need a pacemaker eventually, but the recommendation was fresh air, so here I am.” The smile she gave was watery at best, the air and emotions putting a strain on her tear ducts as much as her heart. “How’re the kids? I never seem to hear from Maru anymore.”

It went on like that for a while, walking around the house that used to be full of life, talking about the goings-on in the little town that she’d so dearly missed. So many things had changed, but it still felt the same, as if time hardly moved.

Eventually, Knox came in with Wilder and Lewis at his heels, the almond-eyed man covering his mouth with the sleeve of his denim jacket. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to unload until we’ve cleaned.” Lily nodded at Knox, chest starting to feel tight and head spinning. “Let me grab the broom and open some windows, you need to step out and take one of your pills.” Although he was right, as usual, she still brushed past him and swatted at his face with her hand as she left, coughing into her elbow as she did.

It took the better part of two hours to have the house back into an acceptable condition, Robin and Lewis helping along where it was needed, unloading the truck and sweeping years of dust from the floors. By the time the sun was starting to turn red in the distant horizon, they were waving goodbye to their welcome crew, promising to drop by in the next few days.

“Fuck it’s quiet.” They were sat on the front steps, watching Knox chop wood for a fire, remnants of a makeshift dinner between them. Granola bars and chocolate definitely didn’t fit into the traditional dinner, but after the stove sparked and refused to light, none of them were willing to do much else. “I didn’t realize how much noise we had in the loft until we left, you can hear the ocean from here.”

Lily snorted, carefully rolling a joint on her lap, cardigan open and a little portable EKG machine running next to her, wires coming off her chest like she was a bionic woman. Or a live specimen. “No you can’t, shithead, that’s the wind in the trees.” The sun was setting low in the sky, dusting everything in reds and purples, and Wilder liked to think it made everything look a little like it was on fire. “Can you bring me a lighter, and maybe my kalimba?” With a hum and a pop of his joints, he stood, smoothing down a few of the curls on her head that managed to escape the pathetic excuse of a bun she’d thrown them in.

“Yeah princess, whatever you want.” Lily smacked his hand away with a curse, bringing the roll to her lips and sealing it shut. It was hard not to smile, even with that nickname she hated so much, with the feeling of freedom behind her teeth like a surge of electricity, Lily wished she could run around and dance like her bones wanted her to. “This want you wanted?” Her smile was infectious, it always was, and Wilder found himself grinning as he handed over their zippo and her instrument. His flute was in his other hand, brass shining in the evening light.

Their tunes never had a start or an end, not when they’d started smoking at least, flowing from one repeating melody to another, feeding off the other one in a feedback loop of noise. Knox walked over with his bundle of firewood, sweat on his temples and a quirk to his eyebrow that asked if it was _really_ a good idea to get high.

“Where’d you learn to cut wood, big guy?” Lily asked, fingers still plucking at the metal bars softly, only half following where Wild was going on his flute.

“Didn’t, just figured it out.” It made both of the smaller two stop playing their song, watching his retreating form as it went into the house to start the fire they were sure to need this early in spring. A shared look of quiet amusement and awe passed between them, Wilder setting his flute on his lap, eyes half-closed.

“What a stud.” If the other man heard the comment, he didn’t turn around, but he did smile to himself when the two on the porch broke out in hysterical laughter. There was nothing that made him more sure of his choice than that sound, the thump of _someone_ falling backward onto the boards, of the telltale hiccup in Lily’s laugh or the crackle of Wilder’s damaged vocal cords straining under his mirth. It’d been a long time since any of them could do that, be free to be loud without neighbors banging on the walls, or a sleazy hookup getting mad.

They spent the rest of daylight out there, Knox thumping a beat on the stairs, Wilder watching his volume to make sure that Lily was still heard over him. Around them, the air of the farm grew cold, but never quite fell asleep, restless nature gathering around the noise coming from the trio in the once-abandoned house. Somewhere, deep in the woods, in the forgotten places around town, the sounds of bells could be heard in the shadows. Music filled the spaces where cobwebs had taken over, a soft and almost unheard noise, waking from its slumber.


	2. and you are the reason I'm smiling when there's nothing to smile about

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I do things wrong  
You thought I might/  
You say I'm going to miss you when  
You leave and you are probably right"  
-Peach, The Front Bottoms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a nice slice of life, throw in some character building and start the pining. oh, and make a cup of tea while you're here, because Marnie said so.
> 
> warnings: mentions of Shane being drunk (duh), mentions of previous drug abuse

Unmedicated and without the hum of the city outside his window, sleep did not come easily to Knox that first night on the homestead.

Between the three of them they’d managed to get a few decent deals at the local Big Box Furniture store before they moved, including three twin sized mattresses that were marginally more comfortable than sleeping on the bare floor. Granted, he’d slept on worse, in much more dangerous situations than the farm presented, but that wasn’t the entire point. It was all so _new_, which set his brain on edge, kept him hovering between awake and sleep in that fitful midpoint of twilight consciousness. It was enough to drive him insane, pulling his restless bones from bed around one in the morning.

That’s how he ended up wandering around the property, picking his way around trees and general debris on the ground, listening to everything that echoed his way up the valley or down from the mountains. It wasn’t as scary or isolating as he’d first thought it would be, the darkness wasn’t anything like the back of a coat closet or trunk of a car. This darkness was inviting, beckoned him with whispered secrets, of the feeling of solitude without being ostracized.

Maybe it was this comfort that lead him south, to the barely visible fence line between the overgrown bushes, and the footpath that extended into the woods. With how dark it was, there was no way to tell where it lead, but Knox was nothing if not a curious man drawn to the unknown. Without so much as a glance back towards the distant silhouette of the house, he ventured forward.

Being above average height, close to six and a half feet if he didn’t slouch, Knox learned to make himself very quiet. It helped when he didn’t want to be spotted in a social setting, or caught sneaking snacks late into the night to fuel his fast metabolism, and it saved his life when he was younger. Now, it made him blend into the shadows as he came up on a sizeable building that took up a part of what looked like a manmade clearing in the woods. The smell of burning wood hit him first, then the wave of manure and hay that told him it was probably some sort of barn.

Ahead of him, along what he assumed could be another footpath or even an old road, a man in a battered sweatshirt stumbled forward. His steps lurched, sending him swaying back and forth, until eventually he fell over into the grass and stopped moving. Knox watched from the fence, waiting for the man to get himself up, but the rock of worry set in his stomach when he realized that wouldn’t happen.

Against his better judgement, and with the cautious determination he always bore, Knox quietly walked towards the body in the road. Whoever the man was, he stank of cheap beer and body odor, and a brief flash of panic surged through Knox before he swallowed it down. Not the place, or the time, he reminded himself, kneeling in the dirt. At least the other man was breathing, albeit with some difficulty with his nose in the dirt.

It took a bit of maneuvering on his part, but eventually Knox got the other man hoisted up and half slung over his wide shoulders, where he could hear the mumbled slurred speech in his ear. Almost nothing he could make out of course, but he figured that if he didn’t live here, they’d at least be able to tell him where to go.

After his first set of quiet knocks, a round middle-aged woman answered the door, in what he could only guess was her nightgown. “I’m not even going to ask. Bring him in, will you?” Knox obliged, following her through the doors of her home, dragging the still unknown man with him. “I swear, I’m getting tired of staying up worrying about this idiot.” She was mumbling to herself, leading them through the kitchen to a room just off of it, where she pointed at the bed in the far corner. “Just dump him there if you would be so kind, I’ll deal with him in the morning.”

Without a word Knox did as he was asked, gently laying the still unconscious man on the bed, making sure his shoes hung off the end before turning back and following the woman’s gesturing hand into the kitchen. After she’d closed the door she let out a sigh, rubbing her eyes with wide fingers. “Thank you, I don’t know who you are and at this point I don’t really care, I’m sure he’d be dead out there if you didn’t find him.”

Knox stood awkwardly in the center of the room, shoulders square but not defensive, trying to not occupy any space. “I’m Knox ma’am, I’ve just moved into the Hickory Homestead up the way with Lillian and our friend Wilder, pleased to meet you.” The woman looked amused in her half asleep state, smiling at him with arms crossed under her chest, having taken a seat at the table.

“So you’re who Lily was going to bring, news of y’all’s arrival has spread quickly around here as soon as Lewis got the letter from her.” Seeing him stood like an oak in her kitchen had Marnie feeling about as out of place as her visits into the city, and she gestured for him to sit with her, which he did with the quiet grace of a house cat. “I’m Marnie, and the drunk you brought home is my nephew Shane. I really am very thankful that you happened to find him, although I won’t say I’m not concerned why you’re out this late.”

He didn’t fidget in his seat, he’d learned control a long time ago, but he was as stiff as a board. “Yes ma’am, it was hard to sleep without the noise of the city, so I took a walk around the property. There was a pathway I went down, and ended up next to your house. I’m sorry if I caused any trouble.”

That made her laugh, still quiet but clearly very amused at the way this boy was acting. “No trouble at all honey, don’t you mind it one bit. I’m glad you happened to be on a walk, otherwise I’d have gone out tomorrow morning to feed the calves and found him miserable.” Hanging on the end of her sentence Marnie furrowed her brows, getting up from her seat to rummage around in the cabinets. “He used to complain all the time about not being able to sleep, I have a tea in here somewhere that may help you at least relax, if not put you right out.” With a triumphant noise she pulled a little blue box out of the back of the drawer next to the fridge, waving it next to her face so it made a soft rattling noise. “Take this home with you and see how you like it, come back and let me know, alright?”

By the time the sun rose over the mountains, the trio were all asleep, mattresses pulled up against each other in a makeshift giant bed near the fireplace. It was almost out by then, even with Knox’s late night refueling and stoking, but none of them seemed to be bothered at all by it. In fact, the only thing that woke Wilder up before it was a proper time to do so was the itch behind his eyelids.

The withdrawals hadn’t been as bad this week, being on the tail end of his recovery period and clean for two months helped with that, but there was always the feeling after he woke up that something was missing. That rush under his skin, the thumping in his veins, vibrating his teeth in his jaw and making his eyes water. Bad habits die hard, and this one didn’t want to die without him it seemed.

They’d learned the night he came home that he had to sleep on the end, no matter how cold he ran, the nightmares still made him occasionally lash out. All it took was one accidental snap to Lily’s jaw for him to get the end of their often-shared bed situation, of which he was grateful for except for that morning when the chill in the air from the partially open window crawled into his bones and made him regret the slim frame he’d been given.

Wilder’s quick fix for his chilly body was to slide right up next to Knox’s back, putting his frigid toes into the backs of the taller man’s knees and pushing his hands under the other’s shirt. The reaction was almost immediate, Knox flung his hand back and pushed, the angle too awkward to really do anything but made Wilder snort into the back of the other’s neck.

“For fuck’s _sake_.” Knox’s voice, no matter how quiet, woke Lily from her blanket cocoon to his other side. The medication she was on made her groggy, bleary eyed and barely conscious when she made a questioning noise in the back of her throat. “Go back to bed, you’re okay.” His voice seemed to soothe her back into sleep, little snores coming out of her nose, and Knox turned over his shoulder to glare at the younger man. “Rude, _and_ inconsiderate.”

“Listen you have to have the middle so I don’t knock her out without meaning to,” Wilder whispered back, trying to snuggle down into the blanket and Knox’s back. “it’s only fair that I get to steal your warmth, I’m freezing my nuts off back here.” He didn’t hear anything else from the other man, who turned back to his usual sleeping position and let him sap the heat from his skin like the filthy goblin that Wilder admitted to being.

They all roused again about two hours later when a chorus of birdsong infiltrated their dazed sleep and fully pulled them into the world of the living. By then the sun was out in all it’s mid-morning glory, to which the trio immediately regretted even being witness to, used to late nights and later mornings being the normal routine.

“I demand that the curtains go up first thing this morning.” Lily posed, sat cross-legged on the mattress with a mirror propped against her pillows, braiding her shoulder-length hair into two side pieces that ran down the length of her head in even plaits. “I don’t care if they’re just pinned to the fuckin’ wall, that sun has got to go.” Wilder raised his mug of instant coffee to her, standing in the corner of the space that had been dubbed the kitchen, microwave humming behind him with a mug of water warming up.

“Seconded, like I get we’ll probably have to be up early when we start planting but there’s no way I’m doing it this week. Or the next. Maybe ever.” Surprisingly it was Knox still not completely up, his late-night adventures making is eyes heavy, and it was only Lily’s fingers carding through muted brown locks that made him aware that they were talking to him.

“Yeah, curtains. We have them packed, and the rods we stole from the apartment are in the same box.” Scrubbing at his eyes with his fingers didn’t help pull him from his blankets, quite content to stay where he was and let his best friend comb out the tangles in his hair. “I uh…” Knox cleared his throat, keeping his eyes closed as he spoke. “I went out last night.”

With a tug that would barely be considered friendly Lily leaned over, still playing with his hair. “Uh-huh? Wanna share some details, big guy?” They both bounced when Wilder landed on the mattress pile, coffee abandoned on the single counter to lay on his stomach with his head in his hands, comically adapting a familiarly overdone pose.

“Please Knox, tell me you went out and did something _wild_ like meet a dude at the saloon or something.” When the third member of the trio didn’t answer right away, and the seconds ticked by in silence, the younger two shared a look before pouncing. “You did not!”

“No way!”

“Tell us _immediately_ you scoundrel!”

Limbs were tossed around their dogpile, carefully as they coukd with one of them patched up and stitched pretty badly, until Knox has to wrestle them both off of his lap and to their own sigdes of the bed. “Enough, you’re like toddlers.” With a deep breath he settles in, lets them get cozy against his sides, rolling his eyes as they look up at him like children with a bedtime story. “I went for a walk…”

His story is retold, minus any negative comments about the man he’d carried into the building, who’s name Lily didn’t recognize. Through the whole thing she had a pinch between her brows, like she was trying to remember anything about Marnie’s family, but was clearly not having any luck. Wilder on the other hand was enthralled, eyes wide and almost unblinking right through to the end. “Alright, _so_?”

A deep sigh left his nose. “So _what_, Wild?” As it often was as soon as the story was done, Lily got up to ponder whatever it was that was stuck in her head, moving to the totes and boxes they’d stacked the night before in slow and deliberate movements.

“So when are you going to see him again!” Heaving a grunt Knox pushed him away, enough awake now that he was less likely to put up with this sort of probing. “Hey! That was destiny talking, I’m sure of it! The spirits-“

From behind him Lily snorted, halfway through putting on a clean shirt over a comfortable low-impact sports bra. “The only spirits you’ve ever talked to are opioid-fueled hallucinations.” A dramatic look of offense took over his face, hair out of its usual messy bun and falling around his jaw like a scandalized courtesan. “Don’t give me that look, you stale piece of bread, come help me change this bandage.”

The itch behind his eyes was only getting worse, and Wilder figured it was a good time to step out for a smoke before he started getting antsy. Leaving the other two to hang curtains and unpack a little, he opened the front door and promptly kicked something with his boot. A mostly hollow sound tumbled down the stairs with the force, and Wilder looked down just in time to see a neatly wrapped box roll gently to a stop in the dirt. “Uh, hey guys? Someone left us a…present?” By the time he’d stepped down and picked it up, Lily had come to his calling, still barefoot but now in a clean dressing on her chest and wearing her favorite oversized denim shirt as a cardigan.

Taking it from his hands she turned it a few times, finding a tag on the ribbon when she pulled it gently. “It’s from Pierre, he runs the store in town, like the local store and not the Joja Mart.” Wilder made a noise in the back of his throat, lighting his cigarette and trying not to inhale as hard as he wanted to at the name.

“Oh no, how did they manage to worm their way into the literal asscrack of this part of the country?” Exhaling he watched her open it, crouching down to set the lid on the porch and pull out three small paper pouches. They rattled softly as she did, like sand in a bottle.

“Eloquent.” Knox had wandered into the open doorway, now leaning against the frame with crossed arms, casual in second-hand jeans and a college sweatshirt. “You should know as well as anyone that they’ll spread faster than a wildfire in Summer.” Watching with one eyebrow just starting to raise as Lily rocked back on her heels and not-so-gracefully let herself fall into a sitting position. The eyebrow stayed raised as he noticed Wilder had wandered off to pick his way between the trees that littered a semi-clear part in front of the house. “What’ve you got, Lilypad?”

She smiled at the nickname, shaking a packet in his direction until he walked over and took it from her hand. “They’re turnip seeds, I guess it would be that time of year.” A letter in the bottom caught her eye, handwritten and short. _Long-time no see, little flower! Here’s a housewarming present, remember that when you need more, come see Ol’ Pierre!_ Things really did never change, and maybe that was for the best right now. At least she knew she could get supplies and groceries without going to the sterile Joja environment they’d escaped before. “Guess this is a sign we better start sooner than we’d planned to.”

“Where do we start?” It was a daunting question, two sets of eyes raising to look out over the homestead in a mix of trepidation and concern; it was a mess, Wilder had been right about it when they first drove up. Trees had ben allowed to grow wherever they wanted to, weeds and broken branches littered most of the ground, and sizeable rocks took up what space they could among the underbrush.

“Please tell me going back to bed is an option.” The raven-haired man sauntered back through the trees, stubbing out his smoke in the heel of his boot to shove the butt of it in his pocket. Somewhere along his walk, Wilder had rolled up his sleeves, showing off the patterns of tattoos that littered his skin like places on a map. Even with his statement, he looked awake and at least a little ready to help after his morning alone time with the nicotine and nature.

Lily sighed, setting the seed packets back into the box and standing up, hands on her hips as he surveyed the area. “We’ll need to clear out a good spot for them, get the dirt tilled and plant them however far apart this says to, then get water on them.” Her fingers tapped against her side, counting off the basics that had been instilled in her. Knox nodded, stepping up to stand next to her, running his hands through the longer hairs at the top of his head.

Taking his place at their sides Wilder couldn’t help but chuckle. What a trio they made, three city slickers escaping to the country, going to try their hand at some down-home farming. “Wow, deceptively easy sounding.” He teased, nudging his shoulder into Lily’s, stumbling when she nudged him back harder.

They started with the rocks, as they were the easiest to see, as well as the larger sticks and branches that Knox suggested would make good fire kindling. “Do you think your grandfather left any tools?” Wilder asked, an armful of rocks cradled to his chest. Without really knowing what to _do_ with all the debris, they’d been making piles next to the house, near the shipping bin that Robin had pointed out the day before.

“I found an axe in the wood storage yesterday.” Knox offered quietly, not straining under his own load, double the size of Wilder’s before him. His ease was almost showing off, if Knox was capable of such a thing, and it made Wilder stick his tongue out at him.

They’d left the lighter and more post-hefting work to Lily, seeing as if she tore a stitch they weren’t sure if the clinic in town could help her, and she was still in recovery. She was sat on the steps in front of the house, breaking down kindling and putting it into a cardboard box to take inside the house when they were done. A menial task really, one that somewhere in the back of her mind left her feeling a little unhelpful. “I’m sure he did, if they aren’t here then maybe Robin is storing them with whatever furniture he left.” That was another chore that they’d need to do eventually if they wanted to start really living in the house.

“There’s also a shed near one of the fence lines, or some kind of small structure.” Dropping off another bundle of wood, Knox wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve, leaning against the post to take inventory of what they’d done with a look of relative peace on his face.

“Yeah that’s a shed, he had a friend living with him for a while right after Nana died. I think he stayed there.” Lily nodded to him, taking more wood and snapping it over her knee. Memories of the strange little man were brief in her mind, dinners spent listening to stories of the war, the old dog he’d kept in the shed that was always barking. “If there’s tools here, maybe they’d be there?” Knox shrugged, brushing his hands off on his jeans and making his way towards the general area he’d been in the night before to go look.

Throwing another armful of rocks into the pile, Wilder huffed and stalked over, sitting next to Lily and leaning back on his elbows, clearly not into the whole working anymore. “What about like, _any_ information about farming? Did he have all this in his head?” It was a possibility, knowing old men on farms on television. Where else were you supposed to keep decades of knowledge but your head? Wilder at least hoped for a book or two, even a magazine would be more helpful than a dead man’s memory.

“Probably. I mean there’s a library in town but it’s small. I know basics, and these seed packets have some information on them.” Without looking she picked one up and waved it in his face, Wilder snatching it from her and flipping it over to read it with a confused look.

“’_Plant in zones 1-3 of national zone map registry_’ Lily, what the _fuck_ is this trying to tell me.” His tone made her laugh, putting her sticks in the box to lean over and point at the text.

“It means we can plant it now, this is zone 2.” Sure enough, under the words was a map of the country, color-coded with the zones and their times of the year for planting.

They could hear Knox coming up through the underbrush, arms full of tools and a watering can hanging from the crook of his elbow. There were what looked like spiderwebs clinging to his hair and the arms of his sweatshirt, but he was smiling in that way that pulled at his scar, and Lily stood up to help. “How do you just _know_ this?” Wilder asked, not moving from his spot, watching instead at the way the clouds drifted overhead like overstuffed pillows.

Lily laughed, jumping off the last step and looking back over her shoulder at him. “I listened, sometimes.”

Hours passed without much changing; they pulled weeds, leveled ground, and under the mostly-helpful instruction of the only one of the who’d ever done any gardening they eventually had five neat rows of planted turnips. Pride bubbled in their chest and overwhelmed all the aches starting to grow in their muscles. Desk jobs and college classrooms did nothing to prepare them for the amount of physical labor that they’d need for even one tiny patch of vegetables, so by the time the sun was starting to set, the three were very ready to call it a day.

“Can we be civil about the showering order, or do we need to rock-paper-scissors for it?” Wilder was lining up their shoes next to the door, old habits starting to take over. There was dirt under his nails and between his fingers, and while it’d felt nice to _do something_ for once, this whole business of getting dirty really wasn’t his thing.

“You two can fight over it, I really need to stop moving.” Having shed her overshirt and pants Lily was laid out on her part of the bed, one hand over her heart and the other starting to pull her braids out. There was a worrying flush to her cheeks and the tops of her thighs, both of the men watching the shake in her chest when she breathed.

Knox walked over and knelt next to her, putting a hand on her knee. “Check-in, how’re you doing?” She was too warm and probably had pushed herself much farther than they’d all realized. It wasn’t safe to test a modified heart this soon, and Wilder made a mental note to do more for her in the next few days than he had.

Smiling crookedly at him Lily waved her hand, one half of her hair now laying in messy waves against the pillow. “Just dizzy, I’m okay.” It wasn’t enough to completely convince either of them, but it was enough for Knox to pat her knee and stand up. He was the dirtiest out of the three of them, mostly of his own doing, seeing as he’d always taken physical labor as more of a duty than a chore.

“You can take it, Wild. I’m going to see if I can get the stove to work at all.” The latter didn’t need another word before he was grabbing a towel out of a tote in the living room and hurrying in to get the first round of their hot water.

In the end, the stove did end up working, and by the time they’d all had a round in the shower and changed into comfortable clothes, instant ramen was heated up and quickly consumed between laughter and watching a stored episode of some sitcom on Knox’s laptop. Exhaustion finally set in, earlier than it had the night before, and with dishes piled in the sink and fire cracking away, they crawled into bed.

Almost like clockwork, Knox was once again awake, ears buzzing and pulsing with the silence of the house. It was like sleep lingered just outside of his reach, at the edges of his eyes and around the sharp parts of his teeth. There was a moment when he’d resigned himself to another night of wandering around, got up as quietly as he could and was standing in front of his shoes when he remembered the tea that Marnie had given him.

Microwaved hot water wasn’t what Wilder’s mother had taught him to use for tea, but it would have to do in the situation. The tea smelled like fresh mint and cinnamon, something earthy and familiar behind the crisp beginning that reminded him of their work earlier. It was almost as comforting just to smell it, sat on the floor near the fire to warm his bare toes, but drinking it proved to be much more effective.

Halfway through the cup, he realized he’d started staring off into space, eyes heavy and limbs warm. With a smile he tried to finish the cup faster, thinking back to the little dimly lit kitchen the night before, the smell of hay and lingering booze mixing with fresh laundry and tile cleaner. The cup joined the other dishes in the sink, and his final coherent thoughts were of patching holes in faded blue sweatshirts.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lily startled out of her own thoughts, staring up at Wilder blocking out the noon sun from her view above their heads. Their garden had been watered that morning by Knox, the man somewhere on the farm chopping down trees that blocked the clearer paths from one end to another.

She squinted up at him, hands still in the dirt around a stubborn plant. “Pulling weeds?” Wilder rolled his eyes at her tone, the same _‘are you asking a dumb question’_ one that she got often around him. Usually charming, now mostly annoying.

“What do you think the surgeons would say about you doing manual labor?” Lily scoffed, bent back down to try to rip the weed and it’s rooted from the dirt, finding instead tattooed fingers joining hers and yanking for her. Looking up she barely managed not to glare, already knowing where this conversation was going to go.

“They _specifically_ told me to start doing low-impact activities, pulling weeds won’t kill me.” Trying to shove him away only ended up with his hand wrapping around her wrist, grip not tight enough to hurt but enough to make her stop. Wilder always looked like he was glaring, that was just his natural resting face, the way his eyes were shaped and the strong definition of his brow. Right now, he looked like he could both throw her to the ground, and haul her up without even trying, despite his naturally thin frame.

Wilder rolled his eyes, eyelashes fluttering wildly. “Right, like doing all that work _yesterday_ definitively didn’t give you chest pains.” That made her cheeks flush in embarrassment; of course, one of them had to know she was hurting today, hurting differently than either of them did, but she couldn’t help the feeling of needing to be useful. It was her farm, her birthright, and if they didn’t all work equally with her pulling her weight, it would fail. She must have looked like a kicked dog because Wilder sighed and pulled her gently by the wrist until their foreheads touched. Under the sunlight, smelling like green leaves and dirt, she didn’t feel as bad. “If you want to be outside, why don’t you go see if Robin will let you sort through whatever she has stored?”

With a tightlipped smile, she pulled back, took her hand away and finally shoved him so he was sitting in the dirt. “Yes _mother_, damn you’re bossy.” He squawked at her, smacking her in the calf as she passed, barely managing to dodge the gloves she threw at his face. “If I’m not back by dark, assume I’m dead and bury me with Grandpa, yeah?”

_“Welcome in- hey! Good to see you_!” The sound of his mother talking to someone broke Sebastian out of his morning routine of checking emails and browsing the forums, music low for his barely-awake ears and it happened to be in his favor this time. Most mornings – well, afternoons for him – were quiet unless interrupted with experiments or customers upstairs. Today it seemed it was the latter, and just as he started to tune the noise out, a familiar voice broke through the barrier of his door.

_“Hi Robin, is this a good time?” _It’d been years since he’d heard her voice, but even with what he knew would be puberty and age changing how she sounded, Lily still sounded like herself; suddenly he was younger, years and years younger, hearing her enter the shop just after summer kicked off and saying hello to his mother before padding downstairs.

_“As good as it’s ever going to get, what’s up, kid?”_ Sebastian waited at his computer chair, held his breath as he listened to them talk about furniture and the homestead. Had she moved in already? Talk of her arrival had been on everyone’s lips for weeks, especially when it was mentioned she wasn’t going to be alone.

That had originally thrown him for a strangely depressive loop, the unclear idea that she’d be bringing _someone_ with her when she came struck a chord in his chest. Even after his mother had come home and talked about moving them in at dinner, the quiet oak of a man and the smaller one who laughed like a crow, he had to bite back waves of mixed emotions. Who were they, how close were they to the little girl he’d grown up with?

Eventually, he realized she wasn’t coming down, and with a sigh, he grabbed his favorite coffee cup off his desk and resigned himself to heading upstairs. Sebastian had a practiced way of going up his stairs, knowing where the creaking boards were and how to avoid them, and was practically silent as he stepped up to the landing and turned to see them standing at the counter.

Lily had grown into someone that at first, he didn’t recognize; still shorter than him by a fair amount, her once too-long and curly hair cut into a bob that hit her shoulders and framed soft cheeks and a smile that seemed stuck to her lips. Before he could really take her in, she turned, and his whole chest got cold at the sight of the medical gauze on her chest and the dark circles under her eyes.

That smile he remembered broke out on her face, but it didn’t feel the same, adulthood clouded the once-prevalent childhood wonder that put a sparkle in her forest eyes. “Hi, Sebastian, long time no see.”

He couldn’t do this right now, not when weeks of build-up of seeing a familiar face again all came crashing around him, the reminder of countless summers where she disappeared for days after playing too hard and suffering from a weakened heart. The reminder that human life was already frail, and she was a prime example.

“Hey.” It was all he could get out before he turned and casually walked away, got his feet to move in the direction of the kitchen, intent on getting his coffee and closing himself back into his bedroom to forget she was even here.


	3. honey don't feed it, it will come back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't give it a hand, offer it a soul  
Honey, make this easy/  
Leave it to the land, this is what it knows  
Honey, that's how it sleeps"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey what's up it's ya boi sorry for being gone for so long, I work a lot and things get in the way when it comes to the holidays. y'all have a good Halloween? Capitalist Day of Genocide and Gentrification? I hope this long slightly-rambling Wilder-centered chapter fills any holes you need it to. should be another one up faster than this one with my new schedule and possible quitting of a shitty job, so be on the lookout. love you be safe anyway on with the show.

Solitude and gardening lasted almost a week before the town called, beckoning the worn-out trio to finish their chores early and take the scenic walk to run some errands. Their moods had darkened after Lily came home from Robin’s with tracks of dried tears on her cheeks, feeling more alone and ostracized than she’d prepared herself for, Sebastian’s reaction settling into the pit of her stomach and breeding worry about how the rest of the town would react to their arrival.

“Alright, step one is to get medical records to the clinic.” The trio walked at a steady pace down the road that lead from the homestead into town, mindful of puddles and with Lily’s eyes scanning for anything they could pick on the way. It would do good to have some spring flowers in the house, and eventually, things like Spring Onions and Salmonberries would be in season. It’s why she’d insisted they walk and not drive in, besides the fact that most people walked unless they were moving furniture or leaving town, which even that was usually done by bus anyway. 

Wilder made a noise at Knox’s comment about the clinic. “So looking forward to that, I just love cold stares and judgement before I’ve had a drink.” It wasn’t a stateless claim, far from it; people tended to be less than kind to the ones who needed it most, and both Wilder and Knox had first hand experience of it. 

“Knock it off, Robin says he’s really nice.” That made Wilder roll his eyes, of course Lily would be the one who wasn’t afraid of rejection and judgement. No one judged a genetic heart condition, but everyone judged addiction and its eventual rehabilitation. He adjusted his backpack on his shoulder, mostly empty like his companions were, but it gave him something to do besides argue.

“Step two, shop for more seeds and pick up groceries.” Knox saw the tension in the other’s shoulders, deciding to move them right along in the conversation as if nothing had happened. They were all a little stir-crazy right now anyway, and it manifested differently. 

Veering off to the side of the road, Lily stooped to pick a few sweet peas, tucking them safely into the pocket on the side of her backpack. “Real groceries too, now that we know the mini-fridge works and we’ve got a table to actually eat at.” Rejoining the other two, she pulled one of the dark pink flowers from her bag, slipping it behind Wilder’s ear with a grin. The color balanced out the black in his hair and eyes, brought a bit of spring to his overall look, and taking in the freckles that were starting to appear on his cheeks.

“Agreed, third stop is the library to see if we can find anything useful.” Ahead of them the treelined road opened into a paved street, quiet bustle already hitting their ears. The almost nerve-wracking silence of their empty farm melted away into all the ambient sounds of life that Pelican Town brought, and it put a spring in at least Knox’s steps. 

Everything seemed to be the opposite of Zuzu City where they’d spent the majority of their formative years; the air was clean and crisp, distant waves on the wind adding a white noise against the hum of bumblebees in the bushes and a radio playing somewhere ahead of them. There was an absence as well, of car horns and shop peddlers shouting, the constant static of voices bouncing off of concrete and glass. It was incredibly freeing, and almost verged on lonely.

“You mean see if Lily can find anything useful since I think we’re like bulls in a china shop when it comes to libraries.” Lily smiled at Wilder’s comment, a skip to her pace as soon as they entered town, sneakers bouncing on the old cobblestone that functioned as the main drag through town. 

Knox couldn’t help but snort through his nose, a steely look coming over his face, mentally prepared for questions and stares that he’d spent most of his life enduring. Just because they were outside of the city didn’t mean that people didn’t ask questions when a man came into town with a sizeable scar mauling one half of his face. “Speak for yourself, Wild.” He mumbled, watched a larger man exit a shop in front of them and make his way across the street to a smaller building carrying a basket of vegetables. “I know how to read perfectly fine.” 

The clinic was the first building in the row, painted a crisp white and blue that seemed both inviting and clean, a stark contrast to the cold metal medical wards that they’d all put up with. A bell chimed above the door as they walked in, Knox ever the chivalrous one going first to hold the door, earning him batted eyelashes and overexaggerated kissy faces. The inside was as small as they’d all expected, but the smell of sterilizers and medical equipment still made Wilder feel sick to his stomach.

Behind the counter was a woman slightly younger than the trio, skin the color of vintage sepia-toned photographs and a halo of purple-toned tight curls around her face. She looked up at the sound of the bell, a smile on her face and glasses sliding down her nose. “Hi, welcome in! How can I – Lily!” It broke out into a grin as she abruptly stood up, the chair she was sitting on scraping against the tiled floor.

“Hey Maru, good to see you.” Bearing the brunt of their social interactions so far, she stepped up to the counter, accepting the slightly awkward hug over the counter, wincing at the way it made her stitches pull against her skin. Still, Maru was a familiar face, grown from a toddler to a budding young woman who seemed to be following in her father’s footsteps into the sciences. 

Maru laughed, pulling back and waving at the two men standing behind Lily who met her with reserved expressions of their own. “Good to see you too, and nice to finally meet the other two mysterious farmers that moved into town!” Her personality didn’t seem to have changed at all, still bright and bubbly as she always was, a polar contrast to her over emotional and shut off half-brother, Lily thought with a sour note in her head. “Well, Doctor Harvey is just in the back, did you need to see him today?”

It was Knox who stepped up to answer, pulling his backpack around and fishing out a manila folder with a piece of paper stapled to the front of it. “We’d planned to just drop off our medical records for him to have.” The others got the hint, pulling out their own much larger folders, Lily having three of them bundled together with a large rubber band and full of protruding paper clips and page flags. 

Maru took all the bundles with a smile, setting them out and beginning to pull out her own binders and sheets of medical forms, preparing herself for an afternoon of archiving and pulling information together for Harvey. 

“I will need to have him pull these stitches out soon if we could schedule that while I’m here.” Lily spoke up, fiddling with the end of her sleeve with one hand, out of sight under the lip of the counter. 

Maru met her request with a smile, pulling up the appointment calendar from inside of a desk drawer. “Great, well let’s get you taken care of then.” 

They decided groceries would have to wait until they were on their way back home, just in case they got anything that could need refrigeration, and instead followed Lily through town and across one of the bridges to the library. 

The building was large for the town, and the frankly strange man behind the counter informed them that it had at one time been a museum of local antiquity until the previous curator took all the items and left town a year or two back. Gunther apologized for the lack of things to see there but walked Lily and Knox around to the sections they had on farming techniques and old Farmer’s Almanac editions that could help out with their first few seasons of planting. 

Wilder wasn’t much a fan of casual reading, or reading for study if his grades were any indication, and quietly stepped out of the building to find a quiet spot next to the river. Sometimes, being around people was hard for him, always had been; as a child, Wilder was the type to pretend to study or be practicing an instrument to get out of social interactions. His parents were rarely disappointed in the idea of him striving to be better, to improve himself in things, get to the top of his class or make the first chair in the orchestra. 

Truthfully? The young man could never think of a time in his life when he was actively trying to make anyone proud of him. It was all a rouse to get them to leave him alone, to make them forget the times he’d come home with bandages in the crooks of his elbows or blood crusted to the sides of his nose. If his parents could see him now, Wilder was sure that they’d be more disappointed in him than the day they’d come to pick him up from the emergency room the first time. The thought of their cold eyes, and colder faces made him shiver under the sunlight. 

He hadn’t even realized he’d been starting into the distance until his eyes refocused and he realized he wasn’t alone. 

From his seat in the green grass of the bank, with legs crossed and hands propping him up behind his hips, Wilder had a front-row seat to a peacefully gorgeous show: leaned up against a tall oak tree, next to the house that Lily has pointed out as being the Mullner’s, was the most stereotypical “jock-type” man he’d ever seen. Dark brown hair, tanned skin peeking out from under the rolled-up sleeves of his varsity jacket that made Wilder think of whiskey lit up by sunlight. 

It wasn’t even that he was doing anything, he was listening to what Wilder assumed was the radio and flipping through a magazine, all cool and relaxed in the shade of the leaves and if it wasn’t the most tantalizing sight that he’d seen since he stopped frolicking around high in bars. Something about his build, the casual small-town look about him, made Wilder look past the Gridball next to his foot and stare straight at him until his eyes burned.

“Wild?” Lily’s voice broke him out of his trance, made him jump in his skin, and he tipped his head back too hard to find both of them standing behind his back, bags now heavier and sagging with what he assumed were books. 

“What?” Yoba, that was a harder tone than he’d meant to use with her, but she’d honestly scared him so bad his heart was thrumming in his chest. Had it been doing that the whole time?

She huffed, arms crossed and a frown on her face. If there was one thing Lily wasn’t a fan of, it was snappy tones and rude looks. “We’ve been talking to you, bud.” As if just seeing now what – or who – Wilder had been looking at, she smiled and waved across the river, and Wilder snapped his head back just in time to see the man waving back casually. 

Knox bent down at the waist, careful not to let his bag swing around and knock the other man out. “Are you alright?” There were those eyes again, that barely audible tone in his voice that said more than Knox would dare to in public. Check in with me, do you need to go home? Are you feeling overwhelmed? For once, Wilder didn’t feel like he could bare the idea of being alone at that moment and reached for Knox’s hand when the other offered it. If he could feel the tremors under his skin, Knox made no mention of it.

“Don’t mother hen me you tall sack ‘a rocks, I’m fine. Just got lost in my own head for a minute.” He couldn’t help but look back again, now meeting eyes with the object of his gaze, too nervous to smile back when the other did and feeling a wash of something cold down his back when a pretty blonde girl came skipping up the road towards the other, pulling his gaze away. 

As if he knew, and he probably did, Knox gently smacked his shoulder and pulled him along by the elbow. “If you say so, bean stalk.” The noise that came out of Wilder’s mouth sounded like a crow’s squawk, startled a family of sparrows out of their perch in a nearby tree, and made the man look up to follow their figures across the bridge until they disappeared from sight. 

Pierre was more than happy to sell them not only all the groceries they could feasibly carry home, but also gave them a discount on a whole mess of seeds that he’d suggested they get. Everything from beans to cauliflower, and threw in some potatoes from the back room that were starting to grow eyes on them just because he was glad to see them come into town. He was also the one that reminded Lily about the egg festival, which she realized was only a few days away.

“I don’t know how I could have forgotten about it,” Lily mused, a spoon in one hand and a book in the other, standing at the stove with a pan of vegetables and meat sautéing away. “it was one of the best festivals, mom and dad used to bring me for the week just so I could be a part of it.” Memories of clean spring air, being a little girl in a frilly dress that got dirty as soon as they were allowed to step away from the food and go play. Chasing butterflies around the bushes that surrounded the graveyard. It was all so far away feeling, like she could barely remember who was there, but she supposed that time would do that to everyone. 

Knox was at the table with two books open in front of him, a notebook between them that was already filling up with hand-drawn charts and plans. While he hardly understood the intricacies of farm planning, there wasn’t anything a good book couldn’t teach him how to do. “You’ve also spent a lot of time away, and it’s not like we have advertising for it in Zuzu.”

“It’s not a big sales holiday, so doesn’t surprise me that neither of us knew about it.” Not one for reading, and still a little out of his sorts, Wilder had taken to finally unpacking the rest of their belongings and organizing them into what small amount of furniture they owned or had inherited. 

Lily had brought home a lot from Robin’s house, all of it sturdy wood furniture that was clearly vintage if not antique and possibly worth a fortune if it wasn’t worth more in emotional attachment to her. There were the large table and four chairs that took over a good chunk of the main living space, two book shelves that were wrapped in cellophane to keep the books on their shelves. Not to mention all the chests and trunks that were on the upper floor, a place that they’d hardly been up to since they moved in with how rickety the stairs had become.

“It’s part of the Spring Equinox I think, but mostly it’s for the kids to go egg hunting and everyone brings in some kind of dish with food from the season.” Carefully setting her book down on the table, Lily reached over and switched the range off, putting down a pot holder on the table and calling Wilder over for dinner. It wasn’t much, simple food and even more basic ingredients, but it was leaps and miles away from the instant ramen and gas station sushi they’d all endured through college.

Dinner was as quiet, peaceful with two of them working and Wilder in his own head. It wasn’t until he processed the quiet and the way it made his ears ring that Wilder spoke up over his plate. “So, what’re you thinking we can make? We’ve only really got the range, I don’t think the oven works.” Talking was an evasion right now, he could feel his own blood under his skin and needed something else to do.

“It does, it’s just shitty.” Knox piped up, put his finger on the line of a book to hold his place as he got more food in his mouth, a careful look up at Wilder making him quickly write down what he needed to before setting the pencil down and pulling himself completely away from the notes. Guilt bubbled up in the dark-eyed man, it always did when he came off like this, but it was Knox’s gentle brush of a socked foot against his leg under the table that made him smile. 

Across from him the third member of their party hummed, spoon in her mouth as she wrote down line after line from the book. If she knew how he felt, Lily didn’t give it away, focused on making sure they could survive off the farm for the first year without having to take out a loan or call her parents. “I’ll think of something. There’s books packed into those bookshelves that Robin helped me drive down, I’m sure one of Nana’s cookbooks is in it.”

It gave him something to do after the dishes had been washed and put into the strainer to dry, while Knox and Lily worked at their plans and note-taking, Wilder ventured into what was once the bedroom. The bed had been removed when Robin came down with furniture, taken back to her place for her to work on when she had time, in no rush since they didn’t own a mattress big enough to fit it. Now the room was storage, with their three mattresses taking up what was left of the space in the living room. 

Pulling out a pocket knife, Wilder carefully considered his options for how to cut into the plastic, deciding that he probably shouldn’t just cut down the middle and risk spilling all the books out. After a few moments, he reached up, thinking going from top to bottom might be for the best. Slowly and with more patience that he thought he had in him, he carefully worked the plastic off the wood, one hand up to prevent anything from falling off the shelves. 

Halfway down, a few books escaped, tumbling to the floor with a loud thud that made him wince. “You alright?” He heard Lily call, making what he hoped was an affirmative noise in the back of his throat and bending down to pick them up. Two were what he thought could be fiction books, cracked paperback spines that reminded him of second-hand bookstores. The third, however, was written in a strange language that he didn’t recognize. 

It hardly looked like a language at all, more like that weird symbol font that every computer had programmed on it that he would play with as a kid. The book was bound in green leather, old and starting to wrinkle at the spine, and when he opened it up to roughly the middle of the book, he found the pages to be blank.

The back of his head prickled like he was being watched, and it made Wilder turn around on his heels and stare out of the bedroom window. A flash of something bright flickered just out of his vision, a blue or a purple, it was hard to tell in the dim of twilight. Something was out there, his mind screamed at him, and any rational thoughts of withdrawal-induced paranoia were erased when he dashed out of the room.

He didn’t hear Knox call his name, didn’t hear the scrape of wood as he stood up suddenly, all Wilder could hear was the blood in his veins and the rustle of trees as he ran outside. Still in his socks, he tripped down the stairs, half running around the side of the house to the back that was so rarely visited by anyone, not caring that the unmoved stones under his feet stung and made his ankles twist in their sockets. He rounded the corner and was met with nothing but the orchestra of crickets in the woods and the faint light from the kitchen window. It was dark, quiet and still as night always brought, but something didn’t feel right. Something was out there, watching him, and it was no animal. 

Between one blink and the next he felt the solid wood of the house behind his back, and his vision was filled with blue eyes and tan skin. Knox’s hands were warm and solid on his shoulders, bracketing him against the house in the way that should have felt claustrophobic but never did. It was instead familiar, even in the creeping panic of paranoia that pushed at the back of his eyes and brought bile into his throat. 

“Breathe, you’re okay.” Wilder barely heard Knox through the thudding in his ears, the crickets that mocked him from the shadows. “Can you tell me what you need right now?” The other man hardly blinked and he could feel it, feel the way he was being looked at, and it added to the feeling bubbling up in his head. It always felt the same, built up like a shaken bottle of soda until he could almost feel the foam spilling past his lips. After so many years of abusing his own body, it was probably what was deserved at this point, and even with Knox at his front and the house at his back there were eyes all over his skin and under his hair, pulling at the beds of his nails until his hands pulsed and shook with it. 

“I was looking for a cookbook and there was this book – “ It was still in his hand, he realized then in a moment of clear panic, brought it up and stared at the cover of it, words almost shifting across the green cover in shimmering gold that sat into the leather, like a brand. None of those even looked like letters, shapes and pictures with no meaning, except that it had to. “it’s written in some weird language and I picked it up and then there was something looking at me!” 

A large hand covered his own, covered the title of the book, but didn’t pull. Part of him wanted to laugh at how much better he felt just with that, with the warmth that came from Knox’s hand on his shoulder, holding him steady. “I’m going to take this from you so you can have both hands, okay?” Wilder nodded, his hair falling into his face from the sides, blanketing him from anything outside of the faded grey of Knox’s shirt and the patch on the knee of his pants. The book slid out of his hand easier than he thought it would and the other man handed it off to the side, a sob ripping out of Wilder’s throat at the thought of Lily standing there as he spiraled back into this. What he wouldn’t do for a hit right then, rehab and recovery be damned. 

“Can you take a deep breath for me? There you go, you’re alright, we’re both right here. I’m going to put your hair back up, is that okay?” Had he stopped breathing? It was a possibility, but a deep breath did feel nice, made his lungs stop burning for a few seconds at least. He closed his eyes, felt Knox step even closer, until their feet brushed, and he was more or less being propped up between two solid things. Could he stand on his own right now? Probably not. Knox’s fingers did feel nice in his hair, pulling out the loose elastic and piling the straight black stands up high on his head into a bun that looked as ridiculous as it always did. “Better? Another deep breath, we’ll get through this, and then we can go back inside and read through the cookbook.” The hands came to rest on his neck this time, and Wilder could feel his own pulse against Knox’s finger, knew that he was testing it just like they did to Lily when she started to look pale. 

“I didn’t find it.” He offered weakly, opening his eyes to find the anchor of blue, close enough to notice that there were wrinkles of worry in the corners of Knox’s eyes. 

“That’s okay, we’ll look together.” The smile didn’t quite reach Knox’s eyes, closed mouthed and remining him of the nurses in the hospital after he’d overdosed. It hurt, more than he thought it would. “Check in with me, on a scale from perfect to definitely not, where are you right now?”

Knox watched as Wilder’s eyes filled with tears, spilled over his freckled cheeks as his mouth pulled into a sour expression that morphed into a suppressed sob as he shook his head hard enough to make the pile of hair on top of his head bob wildly. It didn’t take anything more for him to pull the younger man off the wall and into a hug that would probably crush a weaker person, knowing that right now wasn’t the time for gentleness. He looked at Lily over the other man’s head, seeing her with her own tears in her eyes, and the book clutched to her chest tight enough her knuckles were white.   
\--

It took most of the night and into the next morning for Wilder to lose the edge, for the tears to dry completely and for him to not want to pick at the soft scars on his arms. It wasn’t a complete change, but enough of one that Knox felt alright leaving him alone to water the crops outside. Lily had stayed up with them, read out loud from the cookbook they did indeed end up finding, word for word recipes that her grandmother saved from newspaper clippings in that soft tone of hers that could lull demons into slumber. 

The two of them were piled on the giant bed, huddled close together with some of Lily’s fingers tangled into Wilder’s hair, when Knox quietly slipped out of the room to head outside. He didn’t often have the craving to smoke, but that morning saw him in the rising sunlight with one of Wilder’s in his mouth, falling mostly to ash at his feet as he made sure all their crops were doing alright. Thoughts of what he could do that day were interrupted by Marnie walking up the path from the lower entrance, her grey and auburn hair braided neatly against one shoulder, and a cat walking next to her legs. 

“Well, good morning, Knox. You’re up awfully early, do you sleep at all?” There was a laugh in her voice that made him smile, quickly putting out the offending smoke and setting down the watering can to greet her. 

“Y’know, it doesn’t happen as often as you think.” They shared a smile, the cat meowing loudly and winding its way between Knox’s legs looking for attention. “Who’s this?” He asked, stooping to scratch between grey ears. 

Marnie hummed, turning away from them and surveying the little farm with a look of maternal pride. “I found her near your farm actually, I’d come up to see how y’all were doing and she was poking around the underbrush.” Looking back, she laughed at Knox, who was now fully seated in the dirt with the cat on his lap, purring so loudly that she was sure the rest of the house could hear it. “Never seen her around here before, figured maybe she needed a home, and when she started to follow me up… well, I couldn’t just leave her there.”

“I’ve never owned a pet.” Knox said quietly, letting the small thing brush and bump against his face, stubble probably feeling great to her. “I know the others have, but I have no idea even where to start or if they’d want one.” The cat let out a meow, trying to roll over onto her back in his lap, and ending up with most of her hanging off of his legs like a limp noodle. 

She couldn’t get the smile off her face if she tried, and Marnie realized that she’d inadvertently adopted three grown children into her life like stray animals. “Well, why not start now?”

\--

Saturday the 13th came quickly, and the morning found Lily in the kitchen preparing their fried parsnip and potato chip platter with a sort of focused fervor while the boys watered the crops and tended to any early morning harvests before they needed to get ready. She’d found one of their speakers that were packed away, connecting it to her phone and letting it fill the house with the sounds of soft springy piano melodies as she watched the oven with careful eyes. Knox was right, the thing worked like garbage, half of it didn’t want to warm at all and required constant turning of the pans if she wanted an even crisp to all of the delicately sliced vegetables. 

The night before, she’d carefully picked her way up to the attic in search of those trunks that she hoped held the delicate fabrics of her grandmother’s dress collection from when she was younger. The stairs were unsteady, clearly in need of repair, but towards one wall was a row of chests and a standing wardrobe. Lily had pulled out garment bags with all sorts of things in them; a suit she supposed would have been her grandfather’s, blouses of cream and soft blue, silk and wool trousers that would definitely need to be altered to be fashionable, and countless dresses that spilled taffeta and satin from their zippers. 

When Knox walked in from outside, still mostly clean after his morning chores, Lily waved him over to the stove. “Could you keep an eye on these for the last minute or so while I go get changed? I can do the rest after I get done.”

“No problem.” With one hand he took the oven mitt from her, stepping up to peek into the oven, waving away steam and heat from his face. The front door opened again and Wilder stepped in, slipping off his ‘working shoes’ and tracking Lily as she shuffled into the bedroom/storage room, coming out with a cream-colored garment bag. 

He smirked, pulling his shirt up over his head and tossing it in the hamper in the corning. “Did you find what you were looking for last night?” She’d come down with cobwebs in her hair and a rattle in her chest, but there was a smile on her face that lit up the room, and both Wild and Knox could guess that her haul was successful. No matter how much she denied liking new clothes, they both figured it was both nostalgic and a good change of pace for everyone. 

“You’ll see when I get done!” The trill in her voice echoed off the aged wood, made the house feel warmer than the sun streaming through the windows. Quickly the boys changed out of working clothes and into more respectable attire, even if that meant different things to the both of them. Knox, never one to buy clothes unless he needed them, hoped that a clean pair of khaki pants and his only fresh white t-shirt would do. It was in stark contrast to Wilder, who fussed with a pair of black skinny chino’s and a tucked in oversized prison stripe button down shirt while they waited for Lily to come out of the bedroom.

Her bare feet didn’t make a lot of noise on the wood floor, but when she did round the corner with her hands fiddling with an earring, neither man could contain the brilliant smiles that cracked their faces. 

“Oh, fuck.” Wilder shuffled over first, circling around her like a hawk with prey, hands delicately touching the silk short sleeve button up she’d tied and tucked into trousers. The belt at her waist accentuated her figure, made the probably too-large pants seem like a fashion choice, especially with rolled cuffs at the bottom that matched the sleeves of her shirt. 

Still seated at the table with their basket of food, Knox leaned his head onto his fist, packing forgotten. “Lilypad, you look beautiful.” Finished with her earring she waved him off, trying to push Wilder away from where he was inspecting the fabric of her shirt and adjusting the way it sat on her shoulders. 

“If I would have known you were going to go full ‘vintage casual glamor’ on me I’d have prepped a cold shower.” That made her squawk, and she smacked his arm hard enough it echoed, but all Wilder could do was laugh through his scratchy throat. 

“Big mood.” Finally she pushed him off, walking over to the table where Knox had really only got about a quarter of the food into the serving baskets. 

“Knock it off, the both of you, and help me pack this food!”

\--

The entire town was gathered in the large common area for the festival, a fact that instilled levels of social anxiety in the band of farmers that were quickly amplified when they were ushered to the tables by Robin and Marnie. The women were dressed in their finest, or what was assumed to be their finest if compared to what they usually wore, along with everyone else it seemed. Once the food was laid out they were mostly left alone, seated at one end of the two rows of tables, looking over the party with various looks across their faces. 

“Nothing like a gathering of the small folk to really bolster spirits.” Wilder mumbled, arms crossed and slouched in his chair, very much out of place among the pastel colors and bright white of spring decorum. The only other two out of the town that stuck out in the same way were Sebastian, sat at the other end of the table with his half-sister and Shane, who was following behind Marnie with a chicken in his arms.

He grumbled when Lily pinched his arm, taking in the sights around her and waving to Lori when the older woman spotted her from another table. “Watch your mouth, shithead.” Turning to face Knox he had to snicker at the prostrate posture he held; back straight in the chair, looking straight ahead of him and mostly down, like a sentinel on guard. 

It continued like that for a while, Knox slowly losing the stiffness in his back with each person that came up to say hello, especially after the town’s two children came up and asked him if he would help them get something stuck in a tree. Lily was busy talking with an older woman, who’d introduced herself as Evelyn when Wilder spotted a vaguely familiar silhouette approaching. 

The man from earlier in the week, who he could now identify as being right about his age, was wandering towards the old woman and Lily with a look of familiar recognition that sparked a flash of panic in his stomach. Nights of strange dreams hit him, of brown hair under the sunlight, of what he could now taste on the back of his tongue: a crush, and something that he knew he needed to run away from. “I uh…I’m going to go find a quiet place to smoke.”

With that, Wilder stood up and was gone, walking quickly around the community garden and up the stairs towards where Lily had pointed out the park and playground. He had to sneak by Pierre who was selling his wares, and avoid the mayor who would almost certainly get him to stay, but this week wasn’t a good one to be confronting hot dudes in tight pants. 

Once up the hill overlooking town, Wilder could see the ocean glittering in the near-distance, towards the horizon in a blinding mirror of waves under the midday sun. If he didn’t think he’d be stopped by going back through the party, it would have been a welcome escape from all the hubbub, but for now he had more pressing issues. Like finding his lighter, and the abandoned building that lay in the distance. 

Clearly disused and boarded up, the sign above the doors read Community Center in faded yellow letters, probably once welcoming but now it held an air of foreboding mystery to the young man. Beyond just the general curiosity over abandoned structures that had manifested from his teen years watching ghost hunting shows, there was something pulling at the back of his mind as he peered through the boards over the windows, a familiar tug against his eyes. The rustle of leaves almost sounded like bells, and with an unlit smoke still between his lips, Wilder crept around the back of the building. 

Lily and Knox didn’t realize he’d been gone as long as he had until the egg hunt was over and people were starting to filter out. Alex had come over to visit before being coaxed away by someone named Hailey that seemed keen on getting him to look at the decorations she’d done. It was a hand on Lily’s shoulder that got her to pull away from a pleasant conversation with some of the wives in town, Knox pulling a face that looked concerned. “Have you seen Wilder in the last hour?”

That got her to stop and think, trying to pick him out in the crowd from where they’d all been watching the younger ones run around for eggs, a bubble of worry in her stomach. “No, no I don’t think I have. Have you?”

They both quietly excused themselves from anyone listening and rushed off, Lily passing Sebastian and Sam, both of who gave her expressions of curiosity and something that she thought was jealousy in Sebastian before they made their way up the stairs towards the park. 

\--

It was dark, so eerily dark in the building, in a way that Wilder seemed to have grown used to. How long had he been in there? Time didn’t seem to exist, he couldn’t hear anything but the wind creaking through the old building and the groan of the floorboards under his boots. His lighter was too hot to use frequently, but in the dim light of broken window panes and a few holes in the roof, he could make out a space that looked like an office where he crawled in the window from, a boiler room that was dark and cold, the large open space that functioned as a communal area when it was open to the town. 

Then there were the little things in the corners of his vision. 

Brightly colored compared to the rest of the space, and often just out of eyeshot, he could hear the whisper of leaves when they moved. At first it had been alarming, enough so that Wilder had picked up a stray rock and tossed it into the corner where a few had gathered; then he stopped and thought it through, picked past the paranoia that always seemed to prickle at the edges of his eyes, and realized they weren’t mean looking. Quite the contrary, they were adorable, like stuffed animals often crowding toy store windows. 

One room was different, filled with shelves of old sewing patterns and yarn eaten away by moth balls, what he guessed would have been a crafting room. In the center of the floor was a plaque, gold and out of place, and as he got closer to it he realized it was written in that same strange language as the book he found days prior. In this space, as he knelt over that plate in its foreign script, he could see more of them creep out of the shadows, cautious of his presence. 

By the time that Lily and Knox thought to investigate the abandoned structure, now thoroughly worried about their friend, Wilder was crawling out of the window with a stack of paper in his hand and cobwebs in his hair. With a tumble that put him almost face first into the dirt, he rolled over, blinking up at them with a wild look in his eyes. 

“Anyone feel like going to the library with me?”


	4. hey y’all quick update don’t panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a small update on the story and some stuff no need to panic and feel free to skip this i promise you aren’t missing things

Hey what’s up it’s your friend and pal with a quick update regarding new chapters and maybe some other stuff, so if you don’t care then sorry for possibly alerting you to what was supposed to be a new chapter. 

Updates could be either slowing down or coming way more frequently in the next couple of months, which I know sounds confusing, but lemme explain a bit: as we all do when we write, these characters are loosely based off of either personal experiences or parts of my own personality/life that give them a little je ne sais que if you will. What you don’t know (since I haven’t told you) is that Lily pulls a lot from me in that I’ve also got a genetic heart condition. Don’t panic, nothing serious, but it means that my current position at my job is threatened due to needing to be out for extended periods of time.   
  


I could rant about the US medical system and how employers don’t care about their people but I won’t as that’s unfair to those that really have helped. The long and short of it is that I’ve got the opportunity to change careers - sorry no farm life for this one - which leads to a different schedule. This could be great, with more time to write longer chapters with better clarity, but I don’t want to promise you something that I might not be able to hold up to. So just fair warning, things are going to get bumpy as I change jobs, have a minor procedure (again for the love of Pete don’t panic), and generally get resettled.   
  


Now, fun stuff?

I’m not the best at social media, I forget it exists sometimes, but I also know that there could be some people who want to hang out? Chat? Whatever you kids do I guess? I don’t know man I’m old and tired and having my quarter life crisis.   
  


If y’all are interested in it, I was considering making a discord server for this and other Stardew things just to be friendly with each other. There are times my partner isn’t around when I want to run ideas by him, so that would give you guys direct input on how some stuff goes down. I’m a secretive and pensive soul, but feedback is nice.   
  


I do also have a tumblr, that old dying worthless website we all love so much, but it’s mostly just garbage and art. I’ve played around with the idea of making a side blog just for SDV, it would help me personally with the organizing of aesthetics and mods that I find and are currently building up in my likes (because I’m a heathen).   
  


Finally we come to Pinterest. Now I know what you’re thinking, “what does Pinterest have to do with this?” Let me tell you: everything. It’s where I hide outfit ideas, general aesthetics for inspiration, help building up on my Spotify playlist. That can also be made public if you wanted to take a gander at it.   
  


Please let me know if y’all have any desires or feedback, this work is a pet project for me to stave off negative mental health vibes, but I do want to share things if that interests you.   
  


All my love and parsnips,

Aimee


	5. fear the man who's got heaven in his plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In today's overdue episode we get into the mines, explore some romance and feelings, and foreshadow a bunch of things.  
song title comes from Mover Awayer by Hobo Johnson

Halfway through Spring season, Knox decided that he’d take a walk after the morning chores were done. It wasn’t as if there was a lack of work to be done on the homestead; there were trees that could come down, the old shed needed repairs, so did the coop if he was ever going to get to raise chickens like he’d been promised before they moved. Work, however, wasn’t going anywhere, and Knox needed a day off.

The mountain trail that leads north from their home was a gradual climb, lined with fragrant berry bushes and spring florals blooming in the tall grass. He’d no idea how long he was going to be out, although he’d promised to make it back for dinner, the backpack he always had did have enough food and water in case he was out overnight. It wasn’t an ideal thing to plan for, but survival was always first in his mind.

If he was Wilder, Knox would have been bothered by the lack of real noise outside, would have needed headphones and music or a book playing in his ears. For someone used to dingy apartments and the hum of a city outside his window, he found the whistle of wind in the leaves and singing of birds to be quite enough noise on its own. Nature had a way of filling the gaps that humans left, something that Knox was finding suited him just fine.

Skirting around the carpenter’s shop to avoid any awkward social interactions he kept a steady pace on long legs through the mountains. A yellow tent caught his eye, and he waved at Linus at his fire, smiling when the older man waved back but made no move to come to say hello. The hermit was a good man, kind and knowledgeable, and about as out of place as Knox felt most days. It wasn’t so bad being alone, and some days he wished for his own tent and a cozy spot in the woods.

Standing at the lake, taking in the way the midmorning sun glittered off the water, Knox regretted not planning a fishing trip. It would be good protein at least and a change from the mostly produce based diets they’d fallen into. It was during his thoughts he realized there was something on the side of the mountain.

The ten-minute walk revealed a cave, wide and expansive, smelling of earth and metal ore left alone for ages. Knox stepped in and let his eyes adjust to the darkness, only to find a man in there already. He recognized him from the egg festival, the old adventurer, Marlon.

“Ah, come to investigate the cave I see. I knew I’d been right about you.” He was standing with his arms crossed, relaxed as much as his old and battered body would allow, just at the edge of what looked to be a mine shaft in the ground. It was surrounded by wood planks, with a ladder jutting up about a foot out of the hole. Knox didn’t want to step any closer than he was, the dark already making his pulse jump in his neck.

The younger man managed to swallow, to refocus on the situation, the lack of danger. “What do you mean?” They’d had one brief conversation before this, and it didn’t make him feel easy; he knew the stories, about adventurers going down into the mines, fighting off monsters and who knows what all in the name of glory and treasure. Dreams that Knox never had, wasn’t ever allowed to have, and wasn’t sure he wanted.

Marlon laughed, all gravel and grit behind the noise. “You’re just like me when I was younger, cautiously curious, up for adventure.” How much this was starting to sound like a sales pitch was making Knox nervous. Still, he stepped forward, peered down into the hole and immediately got a rush of vertigo at the sheer depth of it.

“I don’t think I follow. Where does that ladder go, and is that an elevator?” There was indeed a door on the far wall that looked like the elevator of an old industrial building, no lights on the panel or the button.

The older man nodded, stepped back a half step and eyed the old contraption with his one eye. “Aye, or it used to be, no one’s been down there to check if it’s still working. I suspect you’d have to find each level that has a door and reactivate the power manually to use it.” Rolling his shoulder Marlon looked back at Knox, kicking the wooden handle of the ladder gently. “This ladder should go down to the first level, but if you’re going to venture down, you’ll need this.” From a scabbard on his back, he pulled out an old sword, scratched and full of chips, clearly having seen more than its share of danger. Without fanfare, he handed it over to Knox, who took it without realizing what he’d done.

“I’ve never used a-“ Marlon laughed as Knox stuttered, watched the young man hold it in both hands, unbalanced weight teetering up and down in front of him before he got a good grip on it.

“No one’s ever used a sword before they’ve been handed one. Now that you have, go use it. Come see me when you get one of the elevator door’s working, that’ll tell me you’re worth your stuff.” He didn’t give Knox a chance to reply before he walked past with a hard pat on the other’s shoulder and shuffled out of the cave. Either he’d get the hang of it, and pick up the torch handed to him, or he’d give up. Either way, Marlon had been looking for an excuse to pass on that sword.

\--

Their kitchen table, which was half used to eat and half used as storage for small things that would otherwise have no place, sat warm under the sunlight streaming through the open window in the kitchen. Wilder was dressed not in his _alright to get dirty_ clothes, but in casual tones of black and grey, denim and cotton that were clean and not as well-worn as his farming clothes. His chair, and it was _his chair_ by his demands, was occupied with him in these clothes, tipped back on its two back legs as he leafed through their mail. It was strange, the absence of junk mail, advertisements rarely reached this far out of the city and he sort of missed the laminated fliers that came to make great coasters for secondhand side tables.

There was something admittedly charming about handwritten letters, the way the ink bled on some types of paper, made spider webs of black through the fibers like delicate weaves of lace, barely noticeable unless you looked for them. The young man could hardly imagine how it would feel to receive something _romantic_ this way, nearly tipped over backward at the thought of it; a text message was fleeting, easily deleted, something you couldn’t hold in your hands like a letter. The whole idea for him was almost impossibly out of reach, and made him feel like a school kid reading their first love story.

In their stack of mail, buried under an announcement from Pierre about new stock – typed on a typewriter of all things, as if the man didn’t own a computer – was a letter bound in rich purple paper and sealed with a smear of black and gold wax. There was no return name, just his own written in beautiful white ink across the front; _Wilder Park, Hickory Homestead, Stardew Valley_.

The inside of the letter was simple, short and sweet, consisting of a brief demand to visit the tower in the forest to discuss the Community center. “Hey uh, who’s _The Wizard_?” Wilder called into the interior of the house, listening for the pad of Lily’s feet on old wood floors.

“That’s the man I pointed out at the festival, strange clothes and vintage _bad guy in a western_ facial hair.” Her voice floated down the hall from the open bathroom door, slightly muffled by what he assumed could be a hairband or pin between her teeth. There was a memory then, of the man who stood off from the crowd, talked quietly to Linus who lived in the tent in the mountains. While he didn’t look like he belonged in the small town, no one paid him any mind, and no one he listened to spoke badly about him. Still, something shifted in his stomach, sat like a rock in the koi pond of his stomach.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lily appeared in her own casual style, loose jeans cuffed at the ankles and a button-down short-sleeve that _absolutely_ came out of a vintage store that she’d artfully tied at the bottom. She was the picture of relaxed grace, something he’d waited _years_ to see painted on her face and laid across the soft roll of her stomach; it was peace, contentedness like they sang about in old country songs he pretended not to know all the lyrics to. “Okay, doesn’t explain this letter he sent me.” Holding it up, Wilder looked at her with dark almond eyes, drank in his friend like ice water while she read it over.

“Geeze, that sounds serious and vaguely threatening. Maybe you should wait for Knox to be around just in case?” Lily sat at the table, handing the letter back and sifting through the stack for anything with her name on it. She’d sent a letter to her parents and was eager to hear back from them about how things were going on the other side of the continent, where war was raging.

At her suggestion, Wilder hummed, fiddled with the rings in his ears out of habit. “Yeah sure, safety in numbers I guess.” The question then was if Knox would go _willingly_ into such a strange place; sure, the man was their rock, always around when they needed him, but he had a way of rejecting some things. He was often the one who stood outside of shops that entertained ideas of the arcane, sold crystals and baubles that promised luck and protection to anyone who owned them. Knox was quietly against such things, be it his abusive and strict upbringing or his own thoughts, the man rolled his eyes at even the mention of magic.

Sighing out of his nose Wilder put the letter on the table and stood, stretching his arms up until Lily could see the smattering of tattoos on his stomach; a lark next to his navel, the arc of a bundle of lavender going up towards his ribs. “I’m going into town, do you need anything?” He asked, adjusting his admittedly too-big t-shirt back into place, slipping on a denim jacket that was more than likely not his. Clothes were a group amenity at this point in their relationship, and while Lily was always convinced that her shape and weight prevented such things, even she couldn’t deny that things always fit.

“Actually yeah, will you take the fishing rod into Willy? Knox’s been saying he would for a week and we need it for some extra income when the salmon come through later this year.” Finished with her sorting Lily looked him over, gave him a small smile as she pointed to the fishing pole lying neglected at the front door. It’d seen better years, the bamboo starting to crack near the middle, but it would do for the first few months when they needed it to. That is, if they could get it repaired.

With a mock salute, he slipped on his worn boots, a pair of black leather things that were so used they didn’t need to be laced up anymore. It completed his look, or it at least made him fit to roam around town. “Roger that, little lady. Tell Abigail I said hi when she comes through, I might be out for a while.” With a wave and a blown kiss from Lily, he stepped out into the sunshine with the pole in his hand, set on getting that dropped off first.

The beat of waves against the beach was the first sign that Wilder was close, having taken the path south out of their homestead and passed the now familiar ranch as he did. Across the stone bridge, lined with trees and the encroaching reach of sand along the dirt path, the smell of salt and brine washed over him like bathwater; the ocean was special, fond memories of family vacations to beaches farther south than they were, warm all year and with water a crystal green that sparkled under the almost constant sun.

Unsurprisingly, the old fisherman was more than happy to take the broken rod for repairs, laughing like waves breaking over a rocky shore as Wilder offered him money that he politely refused. It left the young man feeling a bit lost, out of sorts at the kindness and willingness to help others that this town extruded from its very foundations. Figuring he’d now have some time to kill, he let his legs guide him wherever they wanted to go, down the pier and across the sand to an empty spot of beach. The shack that stood against the tree line caught his eye, something like a longing building up in his chest before he was turning down the wood and heading for the water.

He had no idea how long he sat there with his feet in the water before he heard the rhythmic beat of footsteps displacing the sand. Turning over his shoulder, Wilder found a man with long auburn hair, dressed like he’d just come off of some low budget theater show about poets and lost love.

“Well, it looks like I’ll have company today.” The man spoke softly, but without hesitation, a strong sort of tone that Wilder thought would sound great narrating an audiobook. “Have you also come to ponder life?” That made him snort through his nose, stiffening when the other came to sit down, and realizing with a hot pool of dread in his stomach that he had no idea what the man’s name was.

Wilder chewed on his lip, stared out into the waves for a minute before he answered. “Not really, though I guess I have been without realizing it.” Shrugging his shoulders, he settled forward, elbows on his knees and head in his hands.

There was a laugh next to him, making him turn his head slightly to see the older man fixing his hair back into a bun. “Ah, it does have that effect on you after a while. It’s why I moved out into the shack, even on the rainiest of days I can hear it, calling to me with its siren song.” The way he spoke clicked in Wilder’s head; this was Elliot, the town writer, no doubt about it with the way he spoke like poetry.

After a while of quiet conversation, the rolling sound of laughter coming from farther up the beach made them both turn their heads. A group of people were gathered around a net, tossing a ball over it in a poor form of volleyball from what he could tell. Wilder recognized Sam on one side, but the man on the other side of the net and Hailey on the sidelines made his gut twist.

“Well, it looks like our peace has ended with the arrival of games, hm?” Elliot mused, not sounding upset in the slightest, looking fondly at the group of young adults. “It’s not often I see Alex on the beach this time of year, maybe the weather is warming up early for us. How will that affect your crops, young farmer?”

Wilder truthfully wasn’t listening, instead focused on the way tanned back muscled rippled just slightly when Alex reached up to bat the ball over the net, following the line of his spine down to where his calves were shaped out of marble. It was bad enough that his crush now had a _name_, something tangible that he could hold in his mouth, sit on his tongue like a drop of bitters from the liquor cabinet before he took a shot. Realizing he was being spoken to, and now seeing Hailey staring at him, Wilder focused back on Elliot. “What? Oh yeah, I think Lil mentioned something about getting things started a little early in case it gets too hot.” The distant laughter was making him dizzy, and his feet were beginning to go numb in the water. “I should probably head back and see if that needs to be done today, I think.”

Elliot laughed, clapped him gently on the shoulder in a way that felt familiar under his skin, pulled him a little closer just to make sure he was listening to the words that came out of his smiling mouth. “If you ever need a place to go that’s quiet, my door is always open to you, alright?” Wilder couldn’t help but smile back, soft and slow, like the waves crashing on the beach in front of them.

\--

“What do you _mean_ you’re avoiding him?” The tone in Abigail’s voice made Lily fold her arms on the table to hide her face in the dark space they created, partly embarrassed and mostly not prepared for this conversation. “Start over, has he not like, _talked_ to you since you moved back?” She shook her head, not picking it up, but hearing Abigail sigh through her teeth.

“I went over to their place when we got a little settled, to talk about the coop and the shed, about the attic. Y’know, just _building_ stuff. He came upstairs, said _hey_ and then left.” The other woman poking at the soft skin of her bicep made her flinch, enough that she rolled just a bit to the side to be rid of it, looking at her with one eye. “That’s _it_; nothing else happened, and he sounded so…

With a roll of her eyes, Abigail leaned back in her chair, can of Joja Cola in one hand, looking at pensive as she always did. “Distant? Cold? Uncaring?” When Lily bit her lip the other sighed again, sat forward and set her can down on the table. “That’s just the front he puts up when he’s overwhelmed, trust me.” It was Lily’s turn to roll her eyes, earning her a kick under the table. “I’m not joking! Listen, he asked about you for weeks before you showed up, tried to play it off all casual and collected, but it was only ever about you.”

Sitting up, Lily fiddled with her own can, mostly untouched. “Yeah okay, so explain why at the festival he glared at Knox and I every chance he got?”

That made Abigail stop, scrunch up her nose and look out of the open window to her right. The sun made her purple hair stand out, showed where her roots were starting to come in at her scalp. “So, we had a game last night, and got stoned off our tits from some shit Seb picked up in Zuzu.” Her voice was quiet like she was preparing to tell a secret. Lily leaned forward a little more, edged into her space and into the sunbeam that streaked across the table. “Sam was asking him about you, about the guys, why no one’s invited them to play. We need more players for the next quest, and Seb…” She shook her head, looked back at Lily and the way the sun lit up her green eyes like traffic lights. “He got really quiet, like a sad quiet, laid on his bed with his face in the pillow for what felt like hours with all that weed in my head.”

They were both quiet for a minute, Lily looking down at the worn wood of the table like it held all the answers and Abigail looking at her eyelashes, counting the seconds. “I don’t know Abs, I came back expecting things to be the same, to have everyone still think of me as being… the same.” Fiddling with the small gold band on her right middle finger made Lily a little less spaced out, more focused. A broken laugh left her mouth before she could stop it. “I mean that’s dumb, right? Not everyone wants to hang out with me, and I did bring two strangers into town, so that’s not ideal for some people I guess.”

“Well, truthfully a few of us thought they were like…” Her tone of voice made Lily look up, a look of amused disbelief on her face. “What!” Abigail exclaimed quietly, smacked the other’s hand like she was the one who was offended. “Listen! You come into town after what, like ten years? With two hot dudes who dote on you like you’re the queen of the farm, and _don’t _expect half the town to think you’re all shacking up together?”

Standing up from the table, Lily adjusted the waistband of her jeans and busied herself with anything other than the conversation. “Trust me, you all wouldn’t be the first ones. We do all sleep in the same bed technically –“ She turned around just in time to see Abigail’s eyes go wide, and couldn’t stop the laugh that was bubbling up in her chest. “Shut up and listen! We’ve never thought to fuck! I promise!”

This continued, even when they left the house and started to walk around the property, and ended when the women came upon the shed. It was against the western perimeter of the land, nestled among an outcrop of trees and surrounded with what looked like dilapidated fencing. The building was small, smaller than the main house was, but was still standing in a way that gave Lily hope that it could be repaired.

“So tell me, what exactly do you hope to do with this pile of rotting wood?” She scoffed at her friend’s tone, carefully picking her way over boards of wood and rocks to get to the door. It was barely hanging off the hinges at this point, and sunlight was streaming through the broken glass of the front window. “Lily, are you _really_ about to go in there?”

With a grunt and a shove, the door opened under her hands, creaking on old metal. “I sure am, you coming?” Not even looking back she stepped in, smelling old gasoline and mold on the air, and trying to pick apart what was left in the structure. Knox had grabbed tools when they first arrived, but what was still left worried her; a cot, devoid of a mattress and down to bare springs, lay against the back wall. The wall itself was covered in old newspaper clippings, haphazardly tacked to the wall, most of them faded with age but a few legible.

“I don’t think we should be in here,” Abigail said from the doorway, watching her friend creep to the back wall, everything too quiet in her ears. It didn’t seem like Lily was listening, instead of coming to stand in front of the metal frame, looking over the headlines that were carefully hung up, yellowed with the passage of time.

\--

Time didn’t seem to exist underground, or so Knox’s brain was telling him as he descended the fourth ladder that day; everything was dark, dim to the point where the shadows danced in the corners of his eyes. It was like being in a casino, where the lack of doors windows and clocks warped time into an imperceptible thing that slipped through your fingers like silk. Somewhere in the back of his throat, he tasted copper, likely from the fall he took down an unstable latter a few levels before, but it was so distant it could have been a memory, buried like he now was under the town.

From the way his legs were starting to ache, and how far he’d gone down so far, it was a fair estimate that he’d been going for at least a few hours. He’d dipped into his water a handful of times, and needed to stop and eat something after the broken ladder going from the third level to the one he was on now. It seemed like every section in the cave system was just similar enough to feel the same, but clearly wasn’t naturally made; he’d come across supports in the walls and ceiling, collapsed tunnels filled with rubble and uncollected ore.

That was another thing about these caves: the amount of ore spilling out of them made Knox regret his lack of tools to pull them out. He’d come out here with nothing, and not wanting to risk breaking the only defensive thing he had, using the sword to chip out what he assumed was copper wasn’t going to happen. Not when there were _sounds_ in the rock that made him hesitant, shuffling and squelching, as if they held something alive.

Finding the ladders wasn’t easy, they’d often been buried under minecarts or piles of discarded rock, as if preventing his slow descent into what he was starting to realize was a vast cave network. The darkness did things to him, as he slowly picked his way from one pile to another looking for the ladder, worked between his shoulders to settle like an itch he couldn’t scratch. Was he supposed to be down here? Was _anyone_ supposed to go down this far?

What answered him was that _sound_ echoing through the cavernous space, the drip of water landing on his face that made him startle backward and look up.

Something _green_ leaked from the ceiling, reminding him of children’s slime if it was more the consistency of gelatin. It leaked slowly at first, oozed straight out of the earth until it pooled into a drop, and fell to the floor.

What happened next was a blur; between stepping forward to see exactly what it could be and the heartbeat after, it grew eyes that looked up at him with blank recognition, before it sprung. The texture as it smacked him in the face was awful, a cross between being slapped with a wet hand and having a water balloon filled with pudding come soaring at you, and it _hurt_. With a grunt he stumbled back from it, realizing whatever it was made of could _transfer_, coating the side of his face and upper torso in the green goo to the point it was hard to see out of one eye.

Without thinking he swung the sword at it, watching in frustration as it seemed to hit, and then knit back together. ”Fuck!” Taking a step back and bracing with his back foot bent behind him, he waited, memories of street fights and dodging the cops coming back with a brunt force worse than the slap of slime that was stinging his face. The creature lunged at him again and this time he was prepared, slashed in a clumsy sort of upside-down arc that sent it flying back towards the wall, where it splattered almost comically and slowly oozed to the floor.

Knox counted his too-fast breaths, waited for it to keep moving, and when it just kept sliding slowly down the rock, he dropped the sword and almost fell to the floor. His left eye burned where it was covered in slime, so did that whole side of his face and part of his neck, and the first thing on Knox’s mind was to get it off before he went blind _again_. Fumbling in his bag for his water he dumped it directly into his eye, hissed through his teeth at the utter stinging that overwhelmed him, and how it didn’t seem to be really helping. But the thing didn’t get up, not once, even after his water bottle was empty and he could sort of see again.

Hidden in the corner, behind a large boulder, was the ladder. It was a blessing, keeping the idea of dying down here at bay for more shaking moments as he left that pile of goo behind and descended down another rotting ladder. The burden of the sword strapped to his backpack was beginning to set in, the weight of Marlon’s words pounding against the back of his skull like a headache.

_“No one’s ever used a sword before they’ve been handed one.”_

At least this floor didn’t carry the heavy noise of those creatures, and as he stepped down the ladder, one of the elevator doors came into view against the wall. Knox could have cried, and it probably would have helped the burn in his eye, but that wasn’t important anymore. What mattered the most is that when he pressed the call button, the lights came on, and a slow rattling chain could be heard behind the door. Salvation in the form of a tiny metal box dangling who-knows how far below the earth’s surface.

It was a rocky ride up, slower than any elevator he’d ever been in before, and the stretch of time filled with iron and rust seemed infinitely longer as the extent of his injuries set in; he was exhausted, muscles bruised and aching from his fall and the labor it took to get down that far, and that wasn’t even mentioning what felt like contact burns from the slime. The sooner he could get home the better, even when his body was screaming at him to just stop and lay down.

\--

In what had become routine for Alex, he was standing outside of the giant oak tree next to his grandparent’s house, debating on if he was going to commit to another workout session or go find an excuse to be away from the house. Life in town never really changed, or at least it hadn’t before the trio came and took over the old farm; it was actually the farm and it’s inhabitants on his mind the most in the last two or three weeks, especially after the festival.

George would have a heart attack if he even got the feeling that his grandson found the dark-haired newcomer to be attractive, and that was an understatement; there’d been a few times where Alex had narrowly convinced his narrow-minded grandfather that he would indeed settle down with a nice girl and have a couple of kids, instead of what he _knew_ would happen. It was always a topic of conversation at the dinner table, and Haley had become the scapegoat to get him out of too many awkward and frankly hurtful talks from the man.

Lost in his own head and the dark clouds that started to hover there, he barely registered who was standing in front of the town bulletin board. He’s dressed in ripped black jeans and a baggy denim jacket that makes his frame look even smaller than the last time Alex had seen him, when he’d made eye contact across the town square and watched the other man flee like he’d seen a ghost. It hadn’t sat right with him, watching the man Lily called Wilder run from him like a startled bird. So, with a confidence built in locker rooms and schoolyards, he pushed off the trunk of the tree.

“Was there something you were looking for, or did I catch you in a daydream?” It wasn’t as _smooth_ as Alex had wanted it to come out, but it at least didn’t sound completely dumb, and it made Wilder turn around so fast his hair whipped in front of his face. This close, just a scant two feet apart, Alex could see the freckles that dotted his face, watched as his dark eyes got wide and then narrowed more than they usually were.

“Do you make it a habit to sneak up on people while they’re reading?” The sound of his voice, cracked at the end and lower than he was expecting, made the gamble of coming up worth it. Wilder turned around, took his eyes off Alex, and like a puppy he walked around to his side to lean against the wall of Pierre’s shop if only to look at him for a while longer. The movement was tracked, and Alex took pride in the way that Wilder licked at the lower corner of his lips before he pretended to not see him anymore. “If you’re so curious, I was reading over the help wanted board for something to do.”

In his short life, Alex has had a lot of crushes that never panned out: that girl in his first-grade math class that dumped a bottle of glue on his desk when he picked her weeds like flowers, the boy in middle school who kissed him and then moved away the next week, all the guys he’d see in the locker room and look away from before they could see him staring. Never once in all of those brief meetings, did he feel as confident and in control as he did right now. “Oh? Anything interesting today?” In one smooth roll of his body, he turned to read the board, blocking Wilder’s view of it and making the other man scoffed. “Leah’s always asking for things so she doesn’t have to go into town, looks like we could run her some stuff before it gets too dark.”

“_We_ can run her some stuff?” Turning back around, Wilder hadn’t moved away at all, he was still as close as he had been. Alex could smell what he assumed was his body wash, it washed off the other in soft waves of clean cedar and mint, making his head spin about as bad as when Wilder smirked and cocked his hip. “When did this become a _we_ thing when it was _me_ looking for something to do.”

Rolling his shoulders, Alex tore off the request from the board, folding it up and stuffing it into the jacket of his letterman’s, standing up expectantly at Wilder’s side. “_You_ aren’t the only one who’s bored.” He got caught up in the way that the other rolled his eyes, the little black tattoos on his fingers that matches his hair as he raked through the strands at the front of his head, pulling his hair free of the band and redoing it. “Also, she wants horseradish, do you even know where to pick that?”

Suppressing a laugh when Wilder paused and stared at the ground, Alex instead stepped away and started walking towards the south side of town. After a few seconds, the sound of Wilder’s boots on the cobblestones followed, until Alex could feel him settle into step beside him. “Please tell me you know where to get it and aren’t going to drag me into the woods to hide my body.”

_That_ made Alex laugh, rolling and deep that bounced off the stone and wood around them. He tossed his head back, missing the way that Wilder looked up at him and swallowed a bit too hard. “Hardly, if I wanted to hide a body, I wouldn’t do it in the woods.” He heard Wilder chuckle, a little breathless and hoarse, unique and leagues away from any other sound he’d ever heard.

Together they passed by Marnie’s ranch, Alex pointing out Leah’s house near the river as they continued towards the denser tree line towards the west. It was beautiful in the slowly fading light, not quite dark enough to make walking a hazard, the setting sun creating soft orange and pink dapples between the leaves as it fell down on them. It reminded Alex of a postcard, or one of those paintings that hung in the therapist’s office he saw when his mom died.

“So, do you go by Wilder, or is there something else I should be calling you?” They’d been walking for maybe ten minutes in silence before the nerves bundling up in Alex’s stomach forced him to say something. It seemed like the other was also growing uncomfortable with the quiet, fiddling with the rings on his fingers and the buttons of his jacket.

Wilder shrugged, readjusting the bag hanging off one shoulder. “Knox and Lily call me Wild, which is I guess what friends do, give you nicknames.” Alex was trying to keep half an eye on the way Wilder spoke, while also scanning the ground for the telltale sign of their quarry. “I guess you could call me whatever you wanted at this point, considering I’ve answered to a lot.”

“Nah, I think Wilder suits you.” He shot the other a smile, all white teeth, and sun-kissed skin, almost missing the touch of pink that colored Wilder’s cheeks. “When you think of me as a friend, just let me know and I’ll come up with a new nickname.”

They were so busy talking that Alex almost walked over a patch of horseradish, stopping to grab Wilder by the sleeve of his jacket and haul him down into a squat. It caused the two of them to knock shoulders, a fact that both chose to absolutely ignore in favor of wilder shoving his hands into the rough soil to yank the root out. At his side, Alex was also pulling them up, handing them to Wilder who was quickly collecting an armful of them.

By the time that they were knocking on Leah’s door, their arms were spotted with dirt, nails dark under the edge with it and both of them were laughing under their breath at the mess. The reclusive artist was grateful, paying Wilder what she’d advertised and giving Alex a share for helping out, a fact that he would dispute even after she’d closed the door.

“Well, guess I should be thanking you for helping me find those. She seemed pretty happy that she didn’t have to leave her work to get it.” They were walking up the path towards the southern border of the farm, Wilder’s bag heavy with the horseradish they’d picked that hadn’t gone to Leah and a few sticking out of the pocket of Alex’s jacket.

The other man stepped sideways, bumping shoulders with the shorter, making them jostle out another laugh. “Hey man, always here to help. Plus, there really isn’t anything else to do if I’m not practicing or working out.” Crickets were singing in the foliage around them, the sun finally starting to set beyond the distant horizon, off to warm another part of the globe in its endless cycle.

For once since he’d moved here, Wilder felt…happy. Wanted, in a way. Like he wasn’t a burden, that he was doing something not only beneficial for someone else, but for himself. It was a strange thing to feel, all things considering, especially when he reflected on who’d come out of it. They got to the fence line and stopped, Alex staring up at the stars slowly starting to dapple the sky, brown eyes warm and soft in a way that made Wilder’s stomach do flips. “This is my stop, will you be okay walking home?” It was a question of habit, years of splitting up with Lily in their dorms and worrying for her safety, that rubbed off even now on a man who could probably bench him without breaking a sweat.

Still, it made Alex look down on him with a smirk, and it made his slightly awkward question worth it. “Get out of here, I’m more worried about you and that overgrown farm you’ve got.” Alex clapped him on the shoulder, letting his hand rest there for a moment longer than he needed. “See you later, Wilder.”

With that, he was turning around and walking away, shooting a wave over his shoulder that Wilder reciprocated before shuffling back a few steps and heading home. As soon as he knew he was out of sight, alone except for the trees around him, Wilder hand to stop and breathe. Whatever crush he’d had on Alex was growing to a boiling point, simmering in his chest and lodging his lungs up hear his throat. With a quiet prayer up to the stars, he hoped it would end soon, before he ruined something else good in his life.

\--

There was chaos when Wilder approached the farmhouse, humming something under his breath with his bones light under his skin. All the lights were on in the house, that he could see from a ways off, and the shadow of someone rushing past the closed drapes made his blood run cold. Picking up the pace he took the stairs two at a time, throwing open the door and dropping his bag.

Sat at the table with his shirt off was Knox, blood dripping from his hairline, dried against his top lip and around his nostrils. Something was wrong with the skin of his face, it was red like a rash, spreading down his sharp jaw to his neck, pooling around his collarbones like a necklace. His eye, which usually was highlighted with the scar, was red and irritated when the other looked up at the sound of the door banging open. “Welcome home, Wild.”

With his teeth vibrating in his head the younger man rushed forward, stopping when his boots were between Knox’s bare feet, taking dirty hands and cupping his friend’s face. “Holy shit, what _happened_!” Before Knox could answer, the sound of rushing feet came down the hall, Lily rounding the corner with a first aid kit and a roll of paper towels under her arm. “Lil, slow down-“

“He went into the fucking _mines_ and got into a tussle with a _slime_, of all fucking things.” She was slightly out of breath, clearly in distress and in a state of _panic_ as she pulled out a few sections of towel and got them wet with some of the baby shampoo they kept around for fresh tattoos and wounds. “Now he’s got a burned face, a nasty gouge in his head, and he’s bled on our floor.”

Knox huffed, closing his eyes and resting his head in Wilder’s palms. “I said I’d clean it up, if you’d stop and listen to me talk.” Lily ignored him, turning to the sink and wringing out the towels before turning to Wilder and looking at the dirt on his hands.

“Do I want to know what _you’ve_ been doing?” With a sigh through his nose, Wilder bent down just enough to press a few kisses to Knox’s brow, listening to him breathe and chuckle in the back of his chest. “Wash your nasty hands and come help me tend to this shithead.”

He did as he was told, scrubbing under his nails and across his skin until they were sufficiently clean, shrugging off the jacket so it wasn’t in the way. Lily handed him tubes of ointment to help with the stinging on Knox’s face, and they went to work patching him up. Luckily, he looked better by the time they were all done, the redness lessening its angry color with the help of modern medicine. “There, good as new.” Wilder hoped his tone would help with the tense air that hung in the house, turning around to find Lily almost done scrubbing the floor with another paper towel. “I brought you home fresh horseradish, and the fishing pole should be done in a few days.”

When she looked up at them, she couldn’t help but smile a little, even when she was a bag of mixed emotions. “So that’s what you got up to, did you find the help wanted board or were you just randomly digging around in the dirt for things?”

“Yeah I found it, Alex helped me find the horseradish and give it to Leah.” Walking around the table, Wilder pulled the money out of his jacket pocket, setting it on the table. “I guess people are willing to give you cash for doing their errands for them?”

Knox and Lily shared a look at the mention of Alex’s name, watching carefully as Wilder picked his way around the mattresses and the clean spot on the floor to take his shoes off and pick up his bag. “Sure, they’ve all got better things to do than dig in the dirt for roots that make your nose run.” Lily offered, taking Wilder’s bag from him when she was handed it, looking inside to find way more horseradish than they’d really ever need. “I think we could sell a chunk of this and keep the rest to spice food up.”

The rest of the night settled, mellowed along with their bodies as Wilder set up their beds, hair wet from a shower. Piling in, they were quieter than usual, everyone lost in their own heads until Babe the cat and sleep crawled in over them, put the group to rest with the smell of fresh dirt and calamine ointment in the air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow hey sorry it's been a while, especially since the last thing I left y'all with was an update and not a real chapter? anyway, things are shitty but I've decided to go back to school which means that I'm hopefully going to be polishing things up as I go for my BA in creative writing, so stay tuned for that shitshow. 
> 
> also per my last post, I did create a tumblr for this nonsense, you can find me here (it's super empty rn but stay tuned because y'all don't realize that before I start writing each day I do a one-shot prompt so I'll post those if you want them):
> 
> https://threemisfitsandafarm.tumblr.com/
> 
> I'm also going to just leave my discord info here too if y'all want to add me, I'll make a discord group if there's enough of you out there. this gives y'all access to Real Time Screaming and probs will also help me develop things:
> 
> vapemywave #2799
> 
> anyway thanks y'all love you see you next time


	6. I buried your memories in the garden to watch them grow with the flowers in spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some things get done, a baby is born, and we take some drugs
> 
> CW: drug use (kinda), birth of an animal (not mentioned in detail), mention of child abuse (again, no detail)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all welcome back. hope you're all doing good with isolation/quarantine/these trying times. I'm okay despite my absence, had a scare with the whole heart thing combined with the plague going around, and then lost this chapter entirely when I switched from one computer to another which was a little frustrating to restart. 
> 
> anyway take it easy, next chapter is deffo the flower dance and the first Real Interaction between Lil and Seb. prepare yourselves. love you. be good.

It was a little early for grown men to be throwing tantrums, but Wilder would defend himself against such childish terms; he was _defending himself _from the oppressive forcefulness of his closest friends, and that was all it was.

“Why do I need to go!” The trio was standing in the field, knee-high rows of greenery pleasantly dappled with sunlight, smelling of growth, and cool water from their morning chores. Said dark-haired man was standing with his hands on his hips, a shadow of dyed denim that loomed over the only female of their group, currently on her knees in front of the first pink strawberry to grace that row.

Lily sighed through her nose, a little congested from seasonal allergies, more than a little tired of being shouted at before eight in the morning. “Don’t be an asshole about it,” it was hard to keep her voice steady, already having enough of the tone being thrown her way, even when she knew that he didn’t mean to take it out on her. “you know as much as I do that your treatment plan requires you to have bi-monthly check-ins with a medical professional.” Behind them, Knox was hefting a plastic bin up to hip level, full of weeds off to be composted in their newly built bin that took up a decent size space next to the dilapidated shed. While it looked like he was ignoring the argument, his body language spoke to the opposite: one ear always listening, slightly tense, ready to throw whatever he had down and step between the two. His friends were both hot-headed, quick to temper, and not afraid to get heated when the emotions rose too high.

Pulling off his gloves with more force than he meant, Wilder threw them down into the dirt, his version of stomping his feet. “It hasn’t been an issue!” The right side of his mouth curled up at the top, a snarl directed at the top of Lily’s head, where the part of her braids exposed pale pink skin. “I haven’t had a single symptom-” Between one word and the next she’d looked up at him, a kind of quiet sternness that verged on fury brewing behind stone-moss eyes.

“_Yet_,” Wrist deep in a strawberry bush, she looked just as intimidating as if she’d been holding a gun, and the fight started to leave Wilder’s blood. “you haven’t had any symptoms _yet_. It’s just like me, I haven’t had an attack _yet_, but it can still _happen_.”

Choosing now to appear from stage right at Wilder’s shoulder, Knox dropped the tote at his feet. “I think you’re putting a lot of fear into gossip that won’t happen.” Out of the three of them, it was Knox that looked worse for wear; dark circles under his eyes, bruises on his arms from defending blows in the mines, a fading black eye that was shades of lemon and lime across tanned skin. “Doctors have a legal right to keep your information private, it’s not like he’s going to go straight to the bar to talk about the former addict in his clinic.”

It was a small comfort, but it’s not why Wilder was upset, at least for the most part. Still, the words left no room for argument, and it seemed to get everyone back to work getting palettes of vegetables ready for sale.

They’d been doing well, or as well as three young adults with no clue what they were doing could; it seemed Pierre was always looking for fresh things to stock his store with, and happily paid a fair price for local ingredients. Gus, the owner of the local bar, was also a regular buyer of their goods for his menu, joking about no longer having to source goods from Joja. It meant they didn’t have to worry about grocery money, and could start to set aside funds for larger repairs and projects they had in mind.

Once the crops were watered and the ripe produce packaged up, the trio split off to begin their own personal endeavors, and Knox decided to take a break from the addicting exploration of the mines to start cleaning out the shed. Lily had been right when she talked about it – it was a mess and more than he’d been prepared for. What he’d first seen, when he went looking for tools in their first few days living on the homestead, was just the tip of an iceberg made of rusting metal and mysterious household items.

To start, the front of the shed was piled with old wooden crates and rusting equipment, most of which Knox wasn’t sure could be salvaged; a plow that seemed to attach to a large animal, scythes with blades that at one time could take off a limb but now lay with shades of burnt orange crumbling under time and water damage, and a box of seeds that were more mold than anything, surprising Knox in their non-sprouted state. That wasn’t to mention the smell of gasoline, coming from what he guessed where the empty storage cans piled in a corner close to the cot and kitchenette that took up the back corner.

A chill started to prick at the back of Knox’s neck as he slowly made his way back to the abandoned living space, made the hair on his neck and arms stand up; no amount of warning could have prepared him for the sheer amount of information hoarding that seemed to be painted on the walls, and it wasn’t just newspaper clippings. What looked like handwritten notes seemed to decorate every blank space of those pages, written between lines of faded Helvetica font, up the margins and across the headers. There wasn’t a lot of room to get close, not with everything piled up and his frame that was larger than Lily’s, but it certainly made a confusing and tantalizing goal to get the area cleared out.

It took an hour or more to get the larger items moved out, to push aside barrels filled with coal and stack empty apple crates against one wall, but eventually, most of the floor could be seen. There were dark stains in the floor, or at least that’s what Knox thought they were, something like ink or blood until he scuffed it with the toe of his boot.

It was soot, scorch marks in the wood from long cold fire, and if he looked around, there were a lot of them. The mystery seemed to get deeper and deeper the more he cleaned, and with the whistling noise coming from the cracked windows, it only served to make him more uneasy. Who really was this man who lived alone in the shed, and what had he been trying to find here among the fumes?

“Hey!” From outside, Wilder picked his way through the overgrown trees, arms laden with plastic food containers. “Lily said it’s fridge clean-out day, so come grab this stuff!” It made Knox chuckle, picking his way around boxes and equipment, meeting his friend in the doorway. “Fuck, how’re you still standing, you can smell the gas from out here.”

Grabbing a few containers with leftovers, Knox had to resist digging into them right away, realizing his hands were beyond dirty and contaminated with who knew what. “I think I’ve just gotten used to it,” It was probably better to step out anyway, and he took his share and followed Wilder back to the house, leaving the door open to hopefully air the space out. “either that or I’ve got massive brain damage from inhaling it and haven’t noticed it yet.”

They decided, once Knox had cleaned his hands and fetched utensils, to share lunch on the front porch. Lily had gone into town on the invitation to tea by Evelyn, and it left the men to their own devices, the first of which was stuffing themselves until they felt sick with it.

The late afternoon sunlight was warm on their skin as they relaxed on the steps, dishes soaking in the sink, Wilder halfway through a smoke. “So, anything interesting in the old shed?”

“You mean besides the wall of nonsense?” Knox had his eyes closed, one leg crossed over the other, just listening to the world around them. He smiled when Wilder laughed, glad to hear him doing it more freely these days. “A few pieces of equipment, including the broken parts for the well that we’ll need to get repaired. I think there’s also a furnace back there, but it’s pretty rusty, so I’m not sure it still works or how to even check.”

There was a beat of quiet, Wilder stubbing out the butt in his ashtray, seemingly working over the words in his head. “I’m sure the blacksmith would be able to help,” It was phrased almost like a question, a raise of his tone at the end of the last word, and even with his eyes closed Knox knew what Wilder’s face looked like. “but regardless, I don’t think we can do anything with that shed until we get the trees cleaned up and the windows fixed.”

“The door also needs to be rehung.” With a sigh Knox opened his eyes, rolling his head on his shoulders to ease some of the tension that was starting to build up. “Well, if you’re not busy, you can come help me get some of it done.” Wilder sighed, huffing and kicking one of his feet into the stair, but as soon as Knox stood up, Wilder followed.

* * *

With a stomach full of pastry and tea, Lily waved goodbye to Evelyn (and George, even when the old man wasn’t looking her way, engrossed in his television show) and started to make her way back home. The afternoon had been pleasant, full of conversation and stories, mostly supplied by the resident Grandma of the town. It was like being a little girl again, but instead of her mother telling her to behave, she got to actually ask questions and share her own thoughts at the table.

Almost immediately, she was rushed from the side, tackled into a hug that threatened to crush her. Sam’s sunshine face came into view when she was released, tall and tanned and full of life, just like every memory she had of him. “Sam!”

Behind him, someone laughed, the cackle of Abigail sparkling in the air. “Hey toadstool, good to see you!” The musician was as alive as ever, arms never completely leaving from her frame, choosing to trap her in a friendly circle of patched denim that smelled like fabric softener and something sweet. “We were just heading up to see the grump, want to join us?”

The idea of seeing Sebastian had her stomach knotting up, and clearly Sam hadn’t been informed by Abigail about the situation, judging by his casual attitude. “I was going to head home and start dinner,” Lily’s comment made him scoff, rolling his eyes until Abigail came over and slipped under his long arms, joining the other woman in the circle of arms. “plus, I promised the boys I’d help them fix up the shed, and I’m still not completely ready for the flower dance this weekend.”

At the mention of the shed, Lily could see Abigail’s face shift. “Oh yeah, have you gone back in to figure out what all those papers were about?” It sounded genuinely curious, with a hint of excitement soured in trepidation.

“Shed? Papers?” Sam was, as usual, invasive in the most childish way. “Why don’t I get told about stuff!” The girls couldn’t help but sigh, almost in unison, now trapped in his arms with him rocking them back and forth. “You guys are keeping cool secrets!”

Lily pulled away first, overheating in the close space of bodies, but smiling without any hints of unease. Though he was the most recent addition to the town’s gaggle of ‘children’, Sam had wormed his way into her heart solidly, and she’d take his clingiest days over anything. “You don’t get told things because you’re a big mouth, Samuel.” He scoffed, still holding Abigail by the shoulders, now resting his head on top of hers. It was the picture of adorable, and made Lily think back to the summer he showed up with his baby brother and parents. “We haven’t gone through it yet, it’s still full of fumes, so I don’t have a clue what any of it is about.”

“Do you need help?” Abigail offered, seeming to take the body leaning on hers in stride. “I’m sure we can convince Sebastian to come too, the more eyes the better I think, at least with the amount of stuff we saw when we went in there.”

As much anxiety as there was about hanging out with someone that seemed to want nothing to do with her, it was outweighed by the desire to learn what happened to the strange man in the shed. “Yeah, okay.” Lily breathed out, starting to think of all the things that could go wrong, and certainly would. “It’ll take us a little while to get the shed safe, so what about next weekend?” She was met with a round of agreements, Sam throwing out the idea of a big sleepover like they were kids again, and left them with a smile on her face.

Through the dusk blanketed leaves on her walk home, Lily thought of everything that could go wrong in the next week: What if the shed wasn’t stable enough and they had to tear it down? Could she repair not only her dress but the other clothes they’d need for the dance? Would the produce ripen in time for sale before the hot weather of summer came through and they had to switch crops? If she thought working for a multinational corporation was stressful, she hadn’t counted on farming being worse.

The house was dark when she finally got a glimpse of it through the tree line, still and silent as a grave, and made her uneasy; the boys were supposed to be here, had they gone out? Fishing her phone from inside of her backpack, she didn’t see anything coming from them to indicate they’d left the farm. Maybe it was her fear of abandonment, of the things that lingered in the dark from stories in her childhood, that made her drop her bag on the porch and head into the thicket of overgrown trees. Maybe it was curiosity that killed cats, and maybe it would kill her too, one day.

“Hey!” The shout pulled Lily from her nervous thoughts, halfway down the path towards the shed. “You’ve gotta come see this!” It was Wilder, waving at her with smears of something dark on his skin, the color making the whites of his teeth seem all the brighter as he grinned in the fading light. _Good_, she thought, almost in a sigh. _they’re alright, at least._

Over the course of her absence, the boys had cleared out most of the shed, if the piles of junk now outside of it were any indication. One looked to be all metal, rusted red and falling apart into dust, and a few piles were definitely wood or something more organic. Whatever had been stored here was there for a long time, long enough to put mushrooms on crates and age holes into steel and iron.

Stepping into the space, Lily found it easier to breathe than the last time, didn’t feel like she was stepping into a fog of gasoline and weed killer. “Woah.” She breathed it out, like a weight falling from her chest, as she got a full view of the shed as it would have been ten years before. The wall wasn’t the only space where newspapers and photos were stuck to the walls — it looked like _every wall _had at one time been covered with something, light spots in the wood where something had protected it from sun damage in vaguely rectangular shapes, residue from tape or glue long left to dry and become flaky. “Does it mean anything?”

Knox, standing with his back to the door, arms crossed over his chest, seemed to shrug. “To someone, maybe.” Minding her step, Lily came to stand at his side, Wilder eventually joining them. They looked like detectives in an old noir film, pondering over evidence, throwing out theories. “So far, all of these have to do with the mountain, specifically the mines. The people that went down and never came back up.” He continued, and it was then that Lily noticed his hands weren’t calmly tucked into his elbows like they usually were. Knox’s nails bit into the skin of his arms, a twitch in his jaw like he was clenching his teeth.

“Not to mention the ones that went into the woods.” Wilder chimed in, voice low as if speaking too loudly would break some sort of spell over them. “I don’t — what’re we supposed to _do _with all of this?” It was a question no one had the answer to, left the three of them standing in front of a wall covered in mysteries and death, dinner plans all but abandoned.

* * *

“I’d ask if you were sure this was the place,” Knox and Wilder were standing in front of a tall stone tower, somewhere in the densest part of the forest to the south of their home. The taller had the sword given to him by Marlon strapped to his backpack, now a comforting weight he chose to have with him whenever he left for uncharted territory. “but I don’t think we’d find him anywhere else in town.”

With confidence draining, Wilder chose to stay where he was instead of approaching the door, kicking at a rock with his boot. “Yeah, pretty ominous if you ask me.” He’d put off following the instructions in the letter long enough, and with Knox at his side, he _should_ feel brave. Except, he doesn’t; there’s a lingering fear of the unknown, a distrust of the strange man and his stranger letter. There was also no explanation of just _how_ he knew that Wilder had been in the community center at all, let alone what he’d seen.

Inside his backpack, the book from weeks prior sat like a stone, edged him on with whispers of forgotten secrets. It’s what had woken him up that morning, a few days since their discovery in the shed, pulled him from the warmth of dreams. The secrets were worth visiting a weird hermit man in the woods before noon. At least, that’s what Wilder was telling himself as he walked forward and knocked on the door. It swung open without resistance under his fist, the air inside thick with the smell of sage and myrrh, and in the middle of what looked like a chalk drawing on the floor stood the wizard.

“Ah, I see you’ve decided to visit me, _at last_.” There were candles everywhere, a giant cauldron that took up a third of the space bubbling away with something that smelled like fern leaves and dirt. Everything in the place made Wilder’s hair stand on end, feeling twice as glad that he’d have Knox there in case the man did anything shady.

“Yeah, I did.” With a false sense of confidence, Wilder crossed his arms over his chest, trying to gauge the situation. Mentally, he noted the one exit was behind them, hoped that they wouldn’t have to move any deeper and risk being trapped. “Mind explaining to me why you were so cryptic about your letter, and how the fuck you know so much about what I’ve been doing?”

The wizard laughed, a crackling noise that came out of his nose more than his mouth, snapping like dry tinder in a fire. “I can explain everything to you, in time.” Dark eyes roamed over him in a way that made him want to shake before they moved over to Knox behind his shoulder. “Are you sure you want your friend here for this? I am about to teach you the secrets long forgotten in this valley, and it isn’t for the faint of spirit.”

“Trust me, I’m not going anywhere.” The rumble of Knox’s voice was comforting, even if Wilder knew that tone hidden in his words; Knox thought this was all a bunch of nonsense, and without proof, the older man would continue his stony attitude. His skepticism had saved them plenty of times before, hopefully, they wouldn’t need it now.

It seemed to work on the wizard, who stepped out of the chalk circle on the floor, revealing intricate symbols and patterns on the floor. Symbols that looked like what he’d read in his book, and on the plaque in the craft room. Wilder’s blood ran cold as the man started to chant, as purple light filled the space between his two palms and barely noticed when Knox stepped forward to press his chest to Wilder’s shoulder.

Inside of the circle, bound in the air with strange magic, was one of the little creatures he’d seen in the craft room; a round thing, like an overfilled apple, colored like the brightest green grass in springtime. It had little beady eyes, but they didn’t seem hostile at all, just scared and confused for the brief flash of time that it was held in the space. The wizard let his hands go limp and the creature disappeared, filling Wilder with dread. “What did you do with it, are you holding it somewhere?” There was hostility in his voice that he didn’t know he had, and he could hear Knox’s breathing pick up as whatever was happening ended.

"No, I merely pulled it from its realm into ours, to show you that I am no liar when I say that I know what you’ve seen and the knowledge you seek.” The two watched as the crossed the room, towards the bubbling liquid, throwing in various powders and liquids until it glowed bright green. The room started to smell like a forest fire, like smoke and pine sap, burning grass, and melting honey. Knox pressed a hand to the middle of Wilder’s back, either a comforting _I’m here_ or a message that something was wrong, Wilder didn’t have time to decipher which one it was before the wizard spoke again. “If you want to speak their language, to read their writing, I offer you this potion.” He gestured towards the cauldron, producing a cup from somewhere on his person. “Drink this, and the forest will welcome you as one of theirs, will entrust you with its secrets as they have to me.”

“Wilder.” Knox’s voice carried a warning, one that was well understood: _you’ve battled drugs before, are you willing to possibly do it again?_ The answer seemed simple enough, at least right now with his eyes stinging and throat burned just from the fumes of whatever it was. He _shouldn’t_ trust this man, but what else did he have to go on? The memory of that afternoon in the dark with them, their tiny faces and little chittering noises in the shadows of that ruined building filled him with a flood of emotions too strong to keep tears from pricking the corners of his eyes. “_Wilder_.” More insistent this time, with an edge of worry.

“Fine,” Wilder stepped forward, even when Knox’s hand gripped at the back of his worn shirt to keep him there. “_but_, if this is all a ploy to drug me into a coma, I give Knox full permission to take your head off.” Turning back just enough to see Knox’s stormy expression, Wilder kept walking forward, got to the wizard and his cup full of bubbling green liquid. This was a terrible idea, and those had never stopped him before.

Knox watched as Wilder took it like a shot, barely had time to reach for his sword or even think to move before his best friend was swaying on his feet and falling to the floor. He was across the room in less than a second, on his knees over Wilder in a position that he’d hoped never to be in again after he returned home from rehab. Normally black eyes were red-rimmed and leaking tears, and Knox couldn’t tell if it was the smoke in the room or true magic that made them seem like they were filled with swirling green.

“He’ll be fine, once the potion wears off—“ Not paying attention at all to what the man was saying, Knox scooped Wilder mostly up into a seated position, tilted towards his chest just in case he needed to pitch forward. Years of friendship and drug abuse made him familiar with signs of overdose, of a bad trip, and this could certainly be one of those. _Tilt his head a little, don’t let his neck get bent, he’ll choke if he throws up. _“it often only lasts a few minutes, give him time.”

His mind was racing, preparing for the worst outcome: a bad trip, a _poisoning_ wasn’t what they needed right now. Wilder might seem like he was under control on the outside, but Knox knew better. He knew the signs on bad days, where his hands shook and sleep evaded him, the times that Wilder was more prone to finishing off a pack and wandering off to be alone than vocalizing what was going on in his head.

Knox had been there, years before when they were still in the throws of that hellscape of a city, when Wilder had gone off to some party and disappeared for three days. Someone else had to bring him home, back to the dingy apartment on the twelfth floor they’d shared, pale and shivering like he’d been in ice water. No one knew what it was, none of them had _the money_ for a hospital trip on their meager savings and part-time jobs, so Knox stayed up when Lily couldn’t afford to. Stayed by Wilder’s side, held him up to empty his stomach into trash cans or the toilet, kept him from overheating with fever or drowning in his own sweat. Missed a test and almost missed a _final_ for him, but Wilder came out of it, like he always did. He _would_, even in his, something that Knox had to believe.

The fear was palpable on his tongue then, as it was now, thick with frankincense and pine in the strange tower in the woods. “What have you _done _to him!” He hissed, didn’t want to shout and possibly trigger something in Wilder, but the anger built up in him so suddenly that he couldn’t help but lash out. If the man heard him, or was paying attention, he didn’t respond, left them on the floor in the hectic silence of whatever he’d let Wilder drink.

_Watch his pulse, if it spikes or suddenly slows, call for an ambulance immediately._ Through panicked thoughts, the man’s actions were calm, practiced, almost _precise _when it came to the routines. They’d settled in his bones, burned desperate holes in his memory, time after time worried his best friend wouldn’t pull out of it.

Meanwhile, Wilder had no idea where he was anymore. Everything was filled with foliage, of leaves and dirt, the trunks of trees so wide he couldn’t see around them as his mind ran through overgrowth and underbrush. His lungs screamed for air, like he couldn’t get enough of it into his body even when he felt like he was hyperventilating, the sensation of falling overwhelming him like the spins used to when he had too much to drink. It wasn’t quite like running, more like flying, soaring over the ground at a phenomenal speed and yet, he could see details clearly in his mind’s eye. Insects crawled in the dirt, birds sang in the trees, the sun was warm on his skin as he passed under the broad canopies above him. It was all-encompassing, as if he was both the forest itself and something passing through it, rolled into one fantastical reach of the imagination.

Then, as suddenly and overwhelmingly as it had started, the vision in his mind opened up into a small clearing in the middle of an ancient-looking forest. There was a grouping of the little things there, near the water’s edge, all of them chittering and jumping around. _Welcome!_ They seemed to say, and he could _hear_ them now in his head, as clearly as he was standing with them. _You’ve come home! Welcome back! We’ve missed you!_ There was joy in their voices, unadulterated happiness that burned in his chest like a campfire, made his fingertips go numb as they danced around him. He had no idea where it was, _who_ he was anymore, but he knew it felt like home. More like home than almost anything else did, except for the farm. It felt their giant bed, Lily’s fried rice they had when money got tight and they didn’t have a lot, Knox’s singing when he thought no one could hear.

On the outside, Knox watched with growing panic as the tears soaked the collar of Wilder’s shirt, as his open eyes flickered without recognition in front of him, heaving labored breaths. In this tower, Knox knew he’d have no signal, they often didn’t on their phones this far out in the country. What he wouldn’t give for a way to contact Lily, to get her to rush to Harvey for help, bring the truck out and pick them up –

With a shuddering gasp, Wilder pitched forward, knocked his head against the bottom of Knox’s chin so hard his ears rung, and he almost sent both of them backward. He was incredibly dizzy, from the potion or the head injury he couldn’t tell, but the feeling of strong arms around his back quickly brought him back into his own body. “Hey, look at me.” Knox couldn’t hold back the worry in his voice, the way it made him pitchy in the back of his throat, but it got Wilder to look up at him. “Are you okay? Can you breathe?” There was an untamed level of anger starting to bubble up in his chest, lodged his heart up into his throat, beat against the back of his teeth like a war drum.

“Y-yeah, yeah I’m okay.” His mouth tasted awful, like sawdust and grass, and it was about that time that Wilder realized he was crying. “Am I okay?” He asked after a pause, watching with some confusion as Knox wiped his cheeks with the pad of a thumb, waiting for confirmation that he hadn’t suddenly undergone some strange transformation. He couldn’t feel his fingers or his legs, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he was sure that they weren’t there anymore. It was only the look on his friend’s face that reassured him he wasn’t some sort of mutated thing, that he was still himself, at least on the outside. “Knox?”

“You’ll be just fine, as I promised.” The wizard spoke up, out of their line of sight around the cauldron, the rattle of glass bottles echoing around them as he worked. “The forest seems to have taken you in without question, a strange situation indeed, but one that worked in your favor.” _Favor_ wasn’t quite the word Wilder would use, not with how weak he felt at the moment, not when there was still fear pricking sour at the back of his sinuses. He wanted to leave, and not for the first time in his awfully short life, he was glad Knox could get them home on his own.

* * *

Predictably, Lily was _not _impressed when she heard Knox retell the story of their adventures earlier in the morning.

“So back _way_ the hell up,” She’d stopped what she’d been doing, taking in the hem of a cream-colored chiffon dress she’d been meaning to fix up for the upcoming Flower Dance, to watch Knox arrange Wilder on the bed with some ice for the raging headache he’d developed on the trip back. “you’re telling me that the wizard made some weird green drink, and you _drank it without hesitation_, in which you proceeded to trip absolute _balls_ while Knox cradled you like a baby on the floor?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Wilder’s voice was mumbled in the dish towel that Knox had wrapped the ice in, laying it over his eyes to keep out the light that plagued the made his brain scream in agony. “Had what could be considered an out of body experience, saw the little forest sprites, came back wanting to take my own head off.”

A punched-out sigh left Lily’s mouth, tying off her stitches and making sure the needle went into its case before she lost it. Again. “Okay, _and_? Did it do anything more than almost kill you?” Quiet settled there briefly, between Lily’s head on her fist propped up on the table, Wilder laying prone on the bed in the middle of the floor, and Knox nursing a bag of ice to the growing bruise under his chin.

“Not sure yet, haven’t tested anything yet.” The dark-haired man broke the quiet, voice soft and a little unsure; _had_ anything changed? He’d heard them talk to him, those little forest creatures, but was that just a side effect of whatever he’d taken?

Wilder couldn’t say, not before Lily was talking again, snapping closed the plastic bins full of thread and needles. “What would you even _test_, you drank weird _forest juice_, for crying out loud!” Little seemed to have changed between them, and while it was Lily who was the most vocal about her concern, it was Knox that watched with careful eyes at the group. A silent protector, stood at the kitchen sink, the weight of the world making his shoulders sag.

“Shush, please I love you so much, but you’re so loud.” Wilder’s plead was soft, muffled and lacking any sharp edges that would cut the rising tension leaking out of Lily’s body. He could tell she was upset, it bled into her tone, into her hands that closed things too hard and too quick _not_ to be upset. It was a stupid idea, as most of his usually were, and even the fact that he was laying here with nothing more than a headache didn’t get rid of the worry clinging to the air.

As usual, it was Knox that got them back on track. “What else do we need for the dance?” Lily turned away from her sewing to watch the sunlight filter through the almost-curls that lived on top of his head, noticed how the collar of his light blue t-shirt was soaked dark at the neck from the ice held to his chin. Neutral as ever, his face didn’t give much away, eyes bright and clear in the afternoon glow. With a sigh, she gave up her worry, knowing it was better than letting it fester into something worse.

“Your pants have been cleaned and should be alright unless you need me to take anything in, same with the shirt you picked out. Wilder is on his own with his thrift store whatever.” Sometime in her distant memory, she remembered the woman who used to be mayor, a little round thing full of tradition and cobwebs in her memory; she’d have forced a stricter dress code, with blue and white and starched fabrics. Lewis wasn’t that man, and when the invitation was sent out, the only indication of formality was held in familiarity and guesswork.

It made it easier to feel less confined, to drag out soft linens and silks rather than starched cotton, be unafraid of pattern and cut. “They’re fine.” He offered from the floor, sounding confident about his clothing choice. When the time came, he’d still fuss over everything, and leave the house feeling less sure about what he’d done. That was normal, a fact of his life that the other two came to think of as an adorable quirk to his personality instead of what it actually was: annoying.

“What’s this dance even for, anyway?” The question came later that evening after Wilder had finally found the strength to get up and take pain medication and drink enough water to drown a horse. They’d sat down for dinner, empty dishes piled up in the center of the table as he read through the book that was now legible while the other two worked on summer crop rotations.

Humming around her pen, Lily finished reading what she’d been working on before spitting it out with a clatter on the wood. “I think it used to be something for matchmaking?” Through her hesitating and unsure tone, Knox groaned at the implication, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration or resignation. Rolling her eyes, she continued; “The only ones who participate in the weird group dance are unmarried people, but that’s mostly ceremony now.”

It didn’t soothe her companions, Wilder putting a finger down on the page so he didn’t lose his place while he fished for his favorite colored candies in their shared bowl. “Do we have to dance?” Dancing wasn’t anything new to any of them, having gone to college and attending house parties along with weekend club hopping, but this didn’t feel like the same situation. Sure, there was plenty of matchmaking that happened at parties or bars or underground music clubs — but those didn’t involve close-knit communities with vendettas and a low population, not to mention an unclear view of alternative lifestyles.

“It’s encouraged,” Lily shrugged, clearly the most unbothered of the group at the idea of some strange coordinated dance. With her eyes on her notebook, she missed the shared look between Wilder and Knox, reeking of anxiety and uncertainty. “but I don’t think Lewis would make us do anything just for posterity’s sake.” It was little consolation to know the mayor wasn’t off his rocker just yet.

* * *

The day before the Flower Dance, Wilder found himself alone in the woods, without anything but the book in one hand and rather sturdy stick in the other.

After his encounter with the Wizard — _encounter_ was the key here, as _magic-fueled forced drug trip_ sounded too harsh to him — his dreams had been plagued by wherever it was his mind went during the induction. A forest, untouched by man or time, as old as time itself, somewhere in Stardew Valley. That’s why he offered to walk with Knox to Marnie’s ranch, not because he thought the older man needed help getting there, but to try and convince himself out of what he was about to do.

The woods were deep, and darker than he was expecting for a few minutes past three in the afternoon; there had been warm late-spring sunlight on his skin twenty minutes before, dappled like freckles of light across the olive of his arms and face. Now, the woods seemed to swallow all the light, bathing him in emeralds that only vaguely hinted at a sun above the canopy. It was a fairy-tale scene, just not the happy part.

Even so, he didn’t feel afraid like he did before he entered; there was a sense of peace here, the sort of stillness you get in graveyards at noon, or libraries after most people have gone home. Wilder was alone, but he wasn’t lonely, a strange feeling that he’d never felt before. It pushed him onward in his quest, Knox’s words ringing in the back of his head: _“If you aren’t back before sunset, I’m coming in there with an axe and a torch to find you.”_

It didn’t take much time after he entered to get completely lost in the undergrowth, no paths marring the ferns and rolling hills of clover that covered the ground to follow anywhere in this part of the forest, quickly turning north into south and bleeding into mystery with no sun to orientate himself to. _I should be afraid_, Wilder thought, the weight of his backpack and his decision slowing him to a stop next to an oak wider than a car. _Why am I not afraid? _Then, there was the taste of pine on his tongue, not unlike gin without the burn of alcohol; he wanted to gag at it, sudden and unwelcomed, pitched forward to put his hands on his knees and prepare to throw up —

“You’re here!” Under him, standing between the toes of his scuffed-up boots, was…well, one of _them_. The book in his backpack had called them _Jumino_, beings created out of nature’s primordial womb, pure and without fault. It’d warned readers of their trusting nature, of their desire to be helpful even at their own expense. They’d die trying to help those that could see them, the ones that gave them gifts, those that cared for the land and its bounties. “We’ve been waiting for you!” This little one was as blue as spring water, or a cloudless summer sky, reminded Wilder of the bags of cotton candy at fairs.

It was waiting for him to speak; he was waiting to see if he needed to change the trajectory of possible bile. “You have?” It came out in a ragged breath, pushed out of his lung like a punch. Juniper and cedar were still dancing in the back of his throat, less invasive now, but still unpleasant. If this was what it felt like talking to them, being around these creatures, he’d have to acquire a taste for nature in ways he wasn’t prepared for. “What for?”

Using its little legs to scamper silently across the foliage, the Jumino ran forward a few feet, turning back and jumping up and down: an invitation, playful, like a dog at the park waiting to be chased. “To show you the way, of course! We don’t want you to get lost, you don’t have your forest feet yet!” Its voice was less foreign now, still high pitched and echoing, silver bells and windchimes that before were just sounds. Wilder heard words now, didn’t have time to figure out if his voice had also changed before he was following it deeper into the forest.

* * *

In the sunlight, Knox followed Marnie around her ranch dutifully, arms laden with boards for the fence. “Usually I’d call Robin down for a chore like this,” the woman was prattling on in that drawl of hers that made his chest feel warm, a growing familiarity between them. “But, seeing as she’s got some sort of project going on up there, you were the next best choice.”

He laughed, quiet and low, stepping around stacks of hay bales to enter the pasture. “I’m honored to be second best to someone as talented as her.” It wasn’t a lie; his self-worth was almost nonexistent, compartmentalized into specific categories that all revolved around physical labor and acts of selflessness for his loved ones. Fixing a fence was easy in theory, and as long as she didn’t want interlocking dovetail joints, Knox was adept at figuring things out as he went.

In the pasture, cows stood tall and unconcerned with his intrusion, though he couldn’t help but say a quiet _pardon me_ every time he had to gently step around one of the lumbering beasts. Just because they weren’t people didn’t mean he could be rude, this was their space after all, and his lack of experience with farm animals didn’t deter him from admiring them respectfully around the boards in his arms.

The work was as easy as he’d expected it to be, nothing more than replacing worn planks with brand new ones, nailing them in at even intervals and not hitting his fingers with the hammer. A rhythm built up then, almost like the drum set he’d sold before they moved, steady and predictable under his carefully tuned ears. Knox found music everywhere, always had, even in the darkest or most mundane facets of his life; trains rolling down the tracks, pounding fists against a door, clothes in an old dryer that thumped against the wall. It was all a soundtrack to his life, a beat as steady as his heart, changing with the scenery.

Marnie’s grunts broke him out of his beat, made him turn his head to see her shoving a brown cow with little success away from the fence line. “It’s steady, she should be alright to—” A deep noise from the cow made him stop, taking in the scene all at once, and realizing there was a small hoof sticking out of its backside. “Marnie?”

“Wasn’t planning on her giving birth today!” Her voice was strained, still trying to direct the poor heifer away from the fence and towards something more comfortable. “Shane! I need hot water!” Her voice carried across the pasture, up towards the farmhouse where the door inside the barn was thrown open with such force it echoed around the wooden space. She turned to him then, and he could see the sweat starting to bead at her forehead. “Come help me get her away from the fence so she doesn’t drop this calf on it.”

Knox moved without hesitation, stepping around her back to try and steer the cow by her neck towards the barn, earning him an aggressive headbutt in the chest. It wouldn’t bruise, yet, but it knocked the wind out of him. “You’re alright, but you can’t have a baby on the fence, okay?” Keeping his voice low, the same one he used on Wilder during an episode, or when Lily had a nightmare, Knox stared into one of her eyes like he could get her to understand him. “You don’t have to go in the barn, but just a couple feet this way, yeah? Towards me, now.”

It took some yanking and pushing between the two, but by the time that Shane was trotting up with a metal bucket full of steaming water, they’d at least given themselves enough room to work. The animal seemed to be in distress, snorting and grunting with effort next to the ear that Knox had pressed to her neck, holding her steady and in place while Marnie instructed her nephew on what to do. The bucket of water was letting off steam like a kettle, probably just shy of boiling, but Marie dunked her arms in up to her elbows before shifting behind the cow and out of his sight.

What remained in his sight was Shane, disheveled as he always seemed to be when Knox caught sight of him in town or while he worked his shift at Joja Mart, but rapidly growing pale in the face at the sight of the miracle of birth. Part of him wanted to do what he always did to his friends, to comfort them, or remove them from the situation. Shane wasn’t…a friend. No matter how many times they passed each other in town, or he came over to help Marnie on the ranch, Shane was an enigma. Distant, often drunk, irritable, and aggravatingly handsome even when wearing a ratty stained sweatshirt and patched jeans.

His mother had once told him not to judge a book by its cover, but the book that Shane was presenting was an autobiography of disaster in his eyes.

The other man faltered on his feet, as pale as a sheet and with hands shaking as Marnie’s voice rose in volume. “They’re stuck, Shane I need you to _focus_!” It didn’t snap him to attention like Knox was hoping it would, and he made a split-second decision.

Leaving his spot up front, Knox took a firm hold of Shane’s arm at the elbow, feeling now how hard the other man was shaking. “Shane,” saying his name felt foreign in his mouth, and he didn’t miss the jerk of the other’s body, like he was trying to get away. Fight or flight. “go hold her steady.” When the other man didn’t move, just stared at the scene growing with blood and amniotic fluids, Knox tugged hard enough to get Shane to stumble backward, right into his chest. “_Shane_.”

“Yeah, fuck! I got it!” There was no time to try and dissect what the emotion driving Shane’s tone was, not when the heifer was now bellowing in what Knox could assume was distress and pain, and he dropped to his knees to plunge his arms in the still scalding water like Marnie had done previously. It burned, enough to make him hiss through his teeth as he followed the woman’s instructions on how to pull and shift the calf to free them.

Between one moment and the next, Knox was soaked with fluids and blood, and a surprisingly heavy calf landed in his lap. Heavy didn’t expect the weight, letting out a punched grunt when he took it full force into his arms, ignoring the sour taste in his mouth in favor of focusing on Marnie’s voice. “Well would you look at that,” her tone was tired, soft and a little bemused at his state. “you came for a fence and ended up a step-daddy to a lovely little girl.”

The laugh that Knox felt leave his mouth was almost hysterical, gazing down at the gore of birth soaking through his shirt and jeans, at the calf kicking its way from his grasp to find her mother’s inquisitive gaze. He missed the look that Shane gave him, eyes wide and a twist to his lips, unreadable and conflicted in the late afternoon light.

* * *

“What the _fuck_ happened to you?” Emerging out of the forest just before sunset, Wilder was greeted by the sight of Knox’s stained clothes, fluids and blood crusting into hard patches across almost the entire front of him, and a grin so big it pulled at the scar on the other’s face.

He looked like shit, but clearly unharmed, which made the feeling of dread swirling in Wilder’s gut lessen. The blood had worried him, panicked even, especially after the softly enlightening day he’d spent with the Jumino. “I’m a dad, I guess.” The panic came back full force, had Wilder marching up to his friend with quick steps, bag swinging heavily behind him. Knox read him like a book, laughing and shoving his hands in his pockets, still smiling. “Not like that, chill out. I helped Marnie birth a calf.”

Stopping just shy of arms reach, now smelling just how _horrid_ his friend was, Wilder was torn between relief and disbelief. “You went to fix a _fence_, how’d you end up with baby cow juices all over you?” A shrug, as if the older man didn’t care about his current state, and it was then that Knox noticed the grass stains and mud all over the other.

“I don’t know, how come you’re covered in dirt? Did you go digging?” The raven-haired man sighed, a shared thought between them: Lily was going to kill them when they got home. Instead of answering, he let his bag fall off his shoulder, unzipping it and showing off the bounty of berries and ferns, all wrapped carefully in his denim jacket. “Ah, definitely digging. Find who you were looking for?”

Wilder grinned then, zipping his bag back up and starting off towards the homestead, not waiting for Knox to follow. “You’ll want to sit down for that answer, babe.”


End file.
